


AvengerPets

by Kimbali



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Animals harming back, Bath Time, Bilgy the Bilgesnipe, Body Odour, Bucky Sam bickering, Bucky's Arm, Bucky's a sweetie, Domestic Fluff, Dum-E's just trying to help, Eating habits, Family, Fluff and Humor, Food, Friday saves the day, Games, Gen, Home Invasion, Hydra, M/M, Mentions of Harm To Animals, Mentions of Tentacle Sex, Mjolnir - Freeform, Mr Men - Freeform, Pet ownership 101, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Science Bros sciencing, Separation Anxiety, Steve's shield, Tentacles, Underwear Theft, Violence, WALKIES, a day in the weird life of the Avengers, animated furniture, board games for bored Avengers, but likes to stir Sam's shit, catch me if you can!, hairless cats, handle gun-lizard with caution, house-training, instinct vs programming, instincts, lets not speak of testicles at dinner, maintaining your gun-lizard, mechanical table, mud puppy, naming pets, natural habitat, no tentacle sex happens, objects turned into living things, overprotective mama bird, puppy-dog eyes, redwing - Freeform, so alone, so much fluffy, transmogrifier, wake up to pets, weird science, weird shit always happens in New York, why do you abandon me, zoomies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-03-16 13:41:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 37,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13637406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kimbali/pseuds/Kimbali
Summary: A sequel to Transmogrified by Odsbodkins.During the events of Transmogrified, a mission turned weird when Bucky, Steve, Natasha and Clint where caught in the beam of a device that turns their respective weapons into living creatures and Bucky's arm into tentacles. They had no choice but to take their new pets home with them.But with great pets, come great responsibility; and with weird pets, come weird responsibility.This fic follows the weird, daily lives of the Avengers and the AvengerPets.





	1. De-transmogrified

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Transmogrified](https://archiveofourown.org/works/849047) by [Odsbodkins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odsbodkins/pseuds/Odsbodkins). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In digging around on AO3 I came across Transmogrified by OdsBodkins from a whopping 5 years ago, and found it both hilarious and adorable, and wanted to continue the shenanigans of the creatures created in it. I strongly suggest reading it first - for those of you weirded out by tentacle sex (it's pretty vanilla as far as that goes), you can pretty much read the first half up to the point of Bucky and Steve closing the bedroom door to get everything you need to get this fic.
> 
> no tentacle sex occurs during this sequel, but that doesn't stop Tony from referring to it. a lot.

"Okay. I think we've worked out how to reverse this thing." Tony tapped the Transmogrifier with his screwdriver in emphasis. "Gotta say, that guy was a real weirdo, but this is some breakthrough technology we have sitting here. Transforming non-organic, inanimate objects into living breathing creatures?  Think of the real world applications!"

"What about the real world applications?" Steve asked, unable to take his eyes off Bucky as he twisted his tentacles around in fascination.

"If this thing can turn Bucktopus's arm into tentacles, with a bit of tweaking we might be able to turn a prosthetic into a living human arm. Not every amputee is lucky enough to get a state of the art robotic prosthetic."

Bucky frowned at him, clearly thinking about how much 'luck' was involved in receiving that arm.

"Don't worry Barnes," Bruce said kindly. "We'll have you back to normal. If that's what you want?"

Bucky looked like he was actually considering it. "This has been a - fun and interesting experience..."

"Tentacle sex," Tony stage whispered loudly to Bruce, and Steve felt a blush starting, dammit.

Bucky grinned over at him.  "...But to be honest, the metal arm is a lot more practical during a fight. I'm used to having it, with tentacles instead I would have to relearn how to fight effectively.  I think I would prefer to have the metal one back. If that's okay with you, Steve?" he asked anxiously.

Steve shrugged. "Hey, it's your arm, your call. The tentacles we're fun though," he told Bucky, who responded with a dopey grin.

Tony coughed. "Yup, tentacle sex." A clatter from further inside the lab made him wince. "Speaking of which - Captain Kinky, can you call off your new pet before it destroys my lab?"

“It’s not my pet,” Steve protested.

“It was _your_ shield. Now it’s _your_ pet,” Tony pointed out.

“Just try calling it, Steve,” Bucky encouraged.

Steve sighed and gave in. He didn’t know what to call the creature, so he whistled.

The clattering stopped; a moment later there was the scrabbling of paws trying to gain purchase on polished concrete, as the furry disc-shaped creature came hurtling from the far end of the lab. It crashed through the leg of a table as if it didn’t exist, knocking it over and ignoring the rain of small parts bouncing across the floor as it made a beeline for Steve. Steve braced for impact but it skidded to a halt before it would have crashed into his own legs, and spun around him in circles of red, white and blue, like a hyperactive frisbee. Steve was starting to get dizzy.

“Sit,” he commanded. The rear pair of legs immediately folded, the disc angling so one curve of the rim rested on the floor. From the upper rim a tongue lolled dementedly, its eyes fixated on Steve. He stared back down at it.

“You have to reward its good behaviour, Steve,” Bruce told him. “Pet ownership 101.”

Steve dropped into a crouch and reached out to scratch at the star-shaped pattern in the fur on its back. “Good boy.” It wriggled closer, leaning into his touch.

“How do you know it’s a boy?” Bruce asked curiously.

“It cocks its leg when it pisses,” Bucky explained. “It pissed in Steve’s boots last night because we were ignoring it.”

“Too busy having tentacle sex, huh?” Steve was really wishing Tony would stop mentioning that, but wasn’t stupid enough to tell him so.

Bucky just grinned. “Yep.”

“Good call. And that’s why I don’t do pets.”

“What, because of tentacle sex?”

“No! Because they piss on things, and hork up hairballs and shit.” He tapped the Transmogrifier with a screwdriver. “Luckily you’ve got two geniuses working on reversing this thing. Once we’ve tested it on Squidward here and got him back to normal, we’ll have your shield back to its shiny, non-shitting self in no time.”

Something inside Steve clenched a little at that. He glanced down at the shield-dog, it’s eyes still burning a hole in his face, staring up at him with eyes full of trust, and loyalty and...stars? They were faint, but looking this closely the irises held five-point stars radiating from the pupil, lighter blue on dark blue.

Jesus. This thing was literally watching him starry-eyed. He looked away, uncomfortable.

“Okay Barnes, if you want to just step up here, stretch your arm – tentacle, whatever – out like so...”

“Steve, you better step right back,” Bruce called.

Steve clicked his fingers and the shield-dog followed him over to the wall, before flopping flat to the floor at Steve’s feet. It tucked its legs under the curve of its body, like a furry horse shoe crab.

“Is this dangerous?” Steve called back to them.

“Well, we’re trying to convert organic substances to inorganic substances.” Bruce explained.

“About ninety percent of me is naturally organic,” Bucky pointed out. “One hundred percent, at the moment.”

“Yeah, so we only want the arm – tentacle – in the beam. Don’t move.” Tony hit the button.

Light flared, and Steve flung up a hand to shield his eyes. When the light faded he blinked and stared.

The tentacle was gone. In its place was what looked like a seal’s flipper.

“Ummm, okay, might need a bit more work.” Tony and Bruce dove back into the guts of the Transmogrifier as Bucky flapped his new flipper back and forth curiously. The flipper still featured a red star on what passed for a seal’s shoulder.

After a few minutes of muttering and poking around with the machine, Tony finally looked up. “That might do it. Okay, Take Two. If you’ll resume your position Andre, we’ll give this another whirl.”

Bucky rolled his eyes in Steve’s direction, but stepped up, stretching out the flipper. Another flash of light – Steve shut his eyes this time – followed by silence as everyone stared.

The silence was broken by the hint of a snigger. Steve was pretty sure it was from Tony.

Bucky must have thought so too, because he directed Tony with his most Winter Soldier glare. “I swear to god, if you dare call me ‘Clucky’...”

Steve let out a snort before he could stop himself, and even Bruce’s face was working furiously like he was trying not to laugh. Tony burst out laughing, tears streaming down his face. “Actually,” he managed to choke out, “I was going to go with ‘Buck-buck-bucKERK!’” He collapsed to the floor clutching at his stomach.

Bucky scowled around at the three laughing men then gave a resigned sigh, his feathers drooping.

“If you three are done, shall we try again?”

Bruce made the next set of adjustments to the machine alone while Tony tried to recover. It took some time. Meanwhile Bucky sidled over to Steve.

“So. Do I look finger lickin’ good to you?” he whispered.

He grinned as Steve went bright red and shoved at him, glad that Tony didn’t have super soldier hearing. The tentacle comments were bad enough.

“If you’re ready Barnes, we’re ready to go again,” Bruce called.

“Welp, third time’s the charm,” Bucky muttered to Steve, before sauntering over and stretching out the chicken wing.

Steve closed his eyes to the light again.

“Or not,” came Bucky’s voice. Steve opened his eyes quickly at that.

It almost looked like an arm; a limb, a hand, four fingers, one thumb. But it more closely resembled a long grey glove made of thick rubber, hanging uselessly by Bucky’s side.

“Stay,” he told the shield-dog, which heaved a gusty sigh of resignation and loneliness in response to its abandonment. Steve moved to Bucky’s side and ran his hand over the new limb.

“How does that feel?”

“Weird. Lopsided. I mean, all the others felt weird too, but at least I was able to control them.” He twisted his torso back and forth, making the rubber arm swing. “I can’t feel your touch right now if that’s what you mean.”

Steve prodded the arm, which let out a loud squeak.

Behind him the shield-dog shot as far upright as its squat little body would allow.

“Weird,” he muttered.

“I think we’re making progress though Barnes,” said Bruce, coming over to inspect it more closely. “This is definitely synthetic rubber, so it’s inorganic. We just have to work out how to be a bit more specific.”

“Oh hey, I think I might have found what’s holding it back,” Tony called from his place by the machine. Bruce went back over to join him and Bucky sighed.

“Hey,” Steve said gently. “You’re doing really well with all this. Promise we won’t leave you this way. The guys will work it out.” He took Bucky’s rubber hand in his and squeezed slightly. It made the ridiculous sounding squeak which made Bucky smile. So Steve did it again.

The blur of red, white and blue took him entirely by surprise; the rubber hand was wrenched from his grasp as a set of teeth latched onto Bucky’s wrist.

“Wha- Hey! Hey, let go of that! That’s attached!” the shield-dog let out playful growls and yanked hard. It pulled Bucky off balance before he had the presence of mind to yank back, engaging in a game of tug of war over the rubber arm squeaking and squawking between them. “Get off it, you psychotic frisbee! Steve!”

Steve grabbed for the squat creature. “No! Bad! Let go – shit.” Dammit, he still didn’t have anything to call the damn thing. He tried to prise open surprisingly strong jaws, with no luck. “Frisbee! Drop it!”

The shield-dog stopped tugging and twisted to look up at him for a moment, considering, before spitting out the rubber arm. Bucky drew back swearing and inspecting the tooth marks, while the little shield-dog stared up at Steve with an expression of worry and expectation. It seemed to be trying to gauge his reaction.

Right, reward good behaviour. “Good boy, Frisbee.” The worried expression instantly vanished with the praise, its tongue lolling out of its mouth while the entire disc pivoted back and forth around its central point. It took Steve a second to realise it was trying to wag a tail it didn’t actually have.

“So, we’re going with Frisbee, huh?” Bucky asked.

Steve sighed and shrugged with resignation. “Guess so. You think he doesn’t look like a Frisbee?”

The four men all looked down at the creature that undeniably looked like a frisbee, one that was currently pleased with being the centre of attention.

Tony suddenly grinned. “I would have called it Sir Cumference, myself.” Bucky snickered at the pun, while Steve rolled his eyes. Bruce reached down to the shield-dog, who sniffed his hand and licked it, pivoting happily.

“Okay. So now that we’ve christened Steve’s new pet - which is going to make it so much harder for you to transform it back, by the way – shall we get back to Bucky’s arm?”

They all moved back to their positions, Steve crouching by the wall to keep the newly dubbed Frisbee restrained.

“Okay Barnes, stretch out that arm again...”

“How?” he demanded to know, lifting his rubber arm with his good hand and letting it flop back down uselessly.

After a brief discussion Tony and Bruce agreed that it was probably safe to prop the arm up on something.

“Probably,” Bucky muttered as they dragged over a table. “Am I going to have a table fused to my arm next?”

“I am seventy-three percent certain that won’t happen.”

“Great.”

“You’ll be fine,” Tony told him with casual confidence.

Steve squeezed his eyes shut and crossed his fingers as the light blasted out again, hoping for the best. He opened them the moment the light faded.

Bucky’s arm was robotic again. So was the table beneath it.

“Woo! Science Bros!” Tony high-fived Bruce, as the table scuttled off on a complicated set of pulleys and hydraulics. “Knew we would get there!”

Bucky tested out the robotic arm, expanding the plates and rotating the joints with relief. “Man, I’m glad to have this thing back.” He raised the hand and waggled his fingers at Steve, grinning.

Heart lifting at the success, Steve went over to him and dragged him into a tight hug. Frisbee followed and danced around them both, excited because Steve was excited, but not understanding why.

“Glad to see you back to your shiny self, pal.”

“Yeah, so am I actually. I hadn’t realised how much this is part of who I am now, until I lost it again,” Bucky admitted.

Steve kissed him, quick and tender. “I love you, no matter what you have in place of a left arm.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Even a giant cockroach leg?”

“Yeah, that would be pushing my limit.” He kissed him again.

“Bleurgh.” Tony faked gagging noises from behind him. “Okay, enough PDAs. Cap, you ready to get your shield back?”

The smile dropped from Steve’s face. “Steve?” seeing the change of expression, Bucky gently cradled his face. “You don’t have to.”

He swallowed. “I’m Captain America. The shield is part of that.” The cold, hard, lifeless shield.

“And my arm is part of me. But when Iron Man blew it off, I got a new one,” Bucky pointed out.

“He bit you.”

“So? At the time, my arm was a squeaky toy, no dog – or shield-dog apparently – can resist those. Look at the little guy.” Bucky dropped to a crouch. Frisbee licked his face enthusiastically then flopped onto his back. Bucky dug metal fingers into the fur on his belly, making one hind leg cycle rhythmically. “See, we’re good. Aren’t we buddy?” He helped the shield-dog flip back over to his feet and Steve suddenly found himself being stared at by two sets of pleading blue eyes. It was too much to resist.

He turned to Tony. “Tony...”

“Ah, Jesus, now all three of you have the big blue puppy-dog eyes. I can definitely see the family resemblance.” He sighed. “Fine. You can keep him. I’ll talk to T’Challa about getting enough vibranium for a new shield.”

Bucky beamed, as Steve bent to pat the shield-dog. “Welcome to the family, Frisbee.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have more chapters planned about Frisbee, Glocky, and Bowie (with possible cameos by Table), but if there are specific scenarios or suggestions you would like to see addressed, I'm happy to see them in the comments section, I'll see what i can do :)


	2. Feeding Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry, shorter chapter though it's up quick.

Staci looked up at the facial recognition camera over the security door, laid her hand on the scanner, which turned green and let her in. “Good evening Ms. Ciesiolka,” came Friday’s sultry voice.

“Hi Friday.” She’d only been working as human security and late night gofer at Avengers Tower for less than two weeks, and it was still weird talking to the walls. Although Frank, who’d been there since the building was Stark Tower instead of Avengers Tower, assured her she would get used to it.

She made her way across the deserted lobby, a large triple-shot mocha in hand to get her through the late night. It was a pretty good gig working security in Avengers Tower, even on graveyard shift. Mr. Stark and Agent Hill took good care of his employees, full health cover, dental, onsite childcare for those staff that needed it, and an AI that, let’s face it, pretty much did the security part of her job for her, though Friday had trouble tipping the pizza delivery without freaking them out. She guessed they had to make the job attractive given, you know, potential alien attacks on the workplace and shit. Weirdest WHS training ever.

She walked past the giant tropical fish tank in the lobby, then stopped. Backtracked and stared.

A black bird was perched on the edge of the fish tank, a shadow with beak gleaming silver in the light of the tank. It looked like a...a heron? Cormorant, maybe? Fuck it, she was a city girl, what did she know? It definitely wasn’t a pigeon. It curved its long graceful neck watching the fish intently, before darting forward at an unsuspecting fish, spearing it neatly on its beak. Which was when she noticed the beak was barbed.

She backed away from the bird slowly and pulled out her phone, trying not to startle it as it used claws to pull the squirming fish off its beak to eat it.  She called up to the security room. “Hey Frank? There’s a bird down here in the lobby, must’ve flown in and gotten locked in for the night.”

“What sort of bird?”

“I dunno. Kind of biggish, black one.”

“A crow?”

She rolled her eyes. She could recognise a crow. “Not like any crow I’ve ever seen.”

“What’s it doing?”

“Eating the fish.”

“Shit.” Frank swore. “Some of those are rare. On my way.”

She hung up the phone. Stared hard at the bird. “Scram!”

It clacked its beak at her in response.

Left alone in the echoing silence of the lobby she shifted from foot to foot. The bird cocked it’s head to stare at her past the barbed beak and she stopped. She didn’t actually have anything to catch it with, and shooting it seemed extreme. She sighed. “Friday, any suggestions on best way of dealing this thing?” she asked.

“I have already made Agent Barton aware of the problem and he is on his way to retrieve it.”

“Why him?” she asked, as it dragged another squirming fish from the tank.

“This bird belongs to Agent Barton. Estimated time of arrival in 30 seconds.”

Oh okay. That simplifies things. If she had to play animal control she would, but hey, it was the pet owner’s responsibility after all.

“Bowie! There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere!” The bird’s head whipped around toward the elevator as Agent Barton stepped out of it coming closer. “How did you even get down here? I can take it from here,” he told her flashing a smile, and it struck her again that _she was working for the freaking Avengers_. He whistled and the bird flew over to land on his shoulder, whistling and warbling and snuggling into his neck.

“It ate a few of the fish,” she told him.

“Oh man, the expensive ones? Hey, I’ll clear it with Tony, it’s my pet so it’s on me.” He scratched at the deadly looking beak as he walked away, while the bird made small noises of pleasure.

Only a few seconds later Frank skidded into the room, his eyes scanning the empty lobby and the tank with the remaining fish, before landing suspiciously on her.

“Sooo, where’s this weird bird then?”

 

****

 

The truth was, Steve really had no idea what Frisbee actually needed. Figuring that if the shield-dog had pissed in his boots then logically the creature needed to drink, he had already set a bowl of water down in the corner of the living room. He and Bucky sat and watched as their new pet drank noisily, dribbling water all over the floor.

“What are we supposed to feed him?” Steve asked. “I mean, I think I would know what to do with a dog, but this isn’t exactly your normal dog. Is dog food good enough?”

“I have no idea. Maybe we just try a few different things and see what he’ll eat?”

“I don’t want to risk making him sick.”

“But we have to feed him something. Frisbee, come here, boy.” The shield-dog happily wandered over to Bucky, who scratched him under the chin in reward. Bucky gently lifted the shield-dog’s lips to reveal his teeth, hampered slightly by the shield-dog’s attempts to lick his face.

“Those are definitely canines there, so I would say he’s definitely not a herbivore at least. Got to be carnivore or omnivore. It’s hard to tell with the shape of his mouth being so different to a dog’s muzzle, but he seems to be pretty...doggy.” He spat fur from his mouth.

“Ok. So we’ll go shopping tomorrow morning for some dog food to try him on. In the meantime tonight, what have we got to give him?” Steve rose from the sofa walking towards the kitchen. “We got any chicken?”

“We ate the chicken last night,” Bucky called from the floor where he was rubbing Frisbee’s belly. “There might be steak.”

“Buck!” Steve’s Depression era sensibilities were appalled at the idea of feeding good steak to a dog. He looked through the fridge finding nothing that seemed suitable, before rummaging through the cupboard.

“Do you think canned tuna is okay for dogs?”

Bucky pulled out his phone and googled it. “If it’s not flavoured and in water instead of oil it should be fine for dogs short-term. Guess we’ll find out for shield-dogs though.”

Steve brought the can and a bowl over, placing the bowl next to the water bowl before opening the can and spooning the tuna out into it. The moment the seal of the can cracked Frisbee perked up, nostrils twitching.

“Come here Frisbee, give this a try.” Steve sat back on the sofa watching as Frisbee circled the bowl almost suspiciously. The shield-dog nudged the bowl across the floor a bit, then tentatively licked the tuna inside it.

Steve saw it, the moment Frisbee realised this was food, tasty food to be eaten; the shield-dog started doing his whole body wiggle and started gulping down the tuna like there was no tomorrow. With a pang, Steve realised that this would be the first food Frisbee had ever eaten in his short little life. He was glad to be able to see it happen.

“Hey, easy buddy, slow down a little before you choke,” Bucky told it, fondly. Within seconds the bowl was empty and licked clean, and Frisbee was sniffing hopefully around it in search of more.

“Sorry buddy, that’s all you’re getting at the moment. We’ll see how well you keep that down before we go giving you more, eh?”

Frisbee stared up at them both and let out a loud burp redolent of tuna breath. Then he spotted the empty can still sitting on the coffee table.

“No, there’s no more in it. You don’t want that.”

Apparently he did want that. Before Steve could stop him, Frisbee lunged for the can, letting the spoon clatter to the floor as powerful jaws made short work of the can.

“Shit! Frisbee, no, drop it!”

Frisbee chewed and swallowed. Burped.

Steve and Bucky stared.

“Did he just...”

“Eat the can? Yeah.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah. I think we need some help with this one.”

The shield-dog’s face started contorting weirdly, and Steve’s heart seized suddenly, wondering if they had poisoned him already. They both moved to sit on the floor, cradling the shield-dog between them as his mouth twisted and tongue rolled around his teeth. “Hey Frisbee, come on buddy, cough it up if that’s what’s troubling you.”

“Steve?” Steve looked up at Bucky worriedly. “It looks like he has something stuck to the roof of his mouth.”

Bucky reached fingers into the mouth, past the teeth and the roiling tongue ignoring the fact that said teeth had crunched through a steel can with no problem. He fished around a little, and pulled out the soggy paper label from off the can. Frisbee immediately seemed happier and wandered off for a drink of water.

Steve eyed the soggy paper dripping saliva from Bucky’s hand. “Well shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I gotta admit, I'm a lot less familiar with the personalities of birds than dogs, having had little to no interaction with pet ones. especially of Bowie's calibre.  
> From the little experience I do have with Australian suburban wild birds I can tell you that:  
> 1\. a tree full of cockatoos on high alert makes a helluva wake-up call at stupid o'clock in the morning.  
> 2\. Kookaburras are a much more pleasant wake-up call.  
> 3\. lorikeets drunk on bottlebrush nectar are hilarious.  
> 4\. Crows are smart fuckers.  
> 5\. Indian miners will not only eat all the dog food but also shit in the waterbowl and on all the outdoor furniture.  
> 6\. tawny frogmouths are awesome, I love them, they give some badass crazy eye :)  
> 7\. Butcherbirds sound pretty, but also stash dead things in the peg basket which is gross.
> 
> But ultimately, despite Bowie's snakebird/heron physical attributes, I can't help but attribute him (her? haven't decided) the personality of an Aussie magpie, which boils down to "I like you because you are nice to me, and feed me meat, so i will come close and make adorable little peep noises, and I will introduce my young to you so you can also feed them, and we can all be friends, but if anyone else comes within a hundred metres of my young in the springtime I WILL FUCKING REMOVE THEIR EYEBALLS. THEY WILL CRY TEARS OF BLOOD AND PAIN."
> 
> Where Clint has been adopted as the young, obviously.


	3. Socialising your pet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, given recent events, just occurred to me to add a bit of a warning regarding the Glocky the gun-lizard scene. It was one of the first bits of this fic I had written.
> 
> No shield-dogs were harmed in the making of this chapter.

Steve walked into the common room with Frisbee at his heels, then stopped at the sight of Clint playing Xbox. Well, it wasn’t so much the sight of Clint playing Xbox that made him stop, that was pretty normal, but watching Bowie drop cheetos into his open mouth like he was a hungry chick was definitely new.

Perched on the back of the sofa, the black bird carded the deadly looking beak through Clint’s hair affectionately, spreading cheeto dust through it. In this light he could see that the bird wasn’t jet black, the feathers reflecting a slight shimmer of purple. Without taking his eyes off the screen or his hands off the controls, Clint opened his mouth wide, and the silver beak dipped into the bag of cheetos, retrieved one and dropped it into his open mouth. “Hey Steve,” he greeted once he’d swallowed.

Steve raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure which one of you is the pet in this situation.” The bird’s head swung around to pin him with the kind of mad crazy-eye of all birds, the red eyes seeming vaguely familiar though Steve couldn’t quite place it.

Clint paused his game and threw the control down onto the sofa. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure she’s adopted me as her chick.” He reached up to scratch under Bowie’s chin and the bird half closed its eyes in bliss.

“How do you know it’s a her?”

“I don’t really, it’s hard to tell with birds outside of comparing plumage, and given she’s one of a kind...Bruce is doing a DNA test, but he isn’t sure that would help, given Bowie didn’t exactly have parents.” he shrugged. “She just acts like a mama bird, so hey, may as well go with ‘she’ until I find out otherwise.”

When Steve stepped closer, those red eyes snapped open and pinned him again, her expression suggesting she was seriously considering removing his eyeballs if he dared threaten her chick. He suddenly remembered the red laser sight on Clint’s bow before it had been transformed.

Frisbee wandered over to Clint, placing front paws on his knee for attention. Clint leant forward to pet him, while Bowie fluffed up her feathers and clacked her beak, at the shield-dog, who sniffed the air and stared back with an air of cheerful interest. The bird cocked its head to one side. The shield-dog didn’t actually have a head, but the whole body tilted, as if mimicking the movement. Feathers still fluffed, Bowie cautiously hopped from the back of the sofa down to the arm, tentatively stretching her neck towards the shield-dog. Frisbee responded with the full-body wiggle that represented a tail wag, and tried to get closer.

The beak suddenly darted forward, grasping a wisp of fur between the shield-dog’s eyes. Frisbee yipped as the hank of fur was yanked out, and Bowie flew to the top of the TV looking pleased with her prize.

“Yeah, she seems to be building a nest, been collecting all sorts of shit for it,” Clint observed, rubbing his hand over the shield-dog’s face.

A streak of white dribbled down the TV screen.

*****

 

He found Natasha lounging in an armchair with a coffee and a book, while Glocky curled contentedly on the coffee table in a square of sunlight. He sat in the other chair and stared at the gun-lizard, as Frisbee trundled curiously around the room inspecting everything.

The gun lizard was complete and unrelieved black, scales mostly smooth but with a stripe of larger raised scales running from its narrow head down its back to a thick fleshy club-shaped tail that had once been the butt of the gun. It looked vaguely like a shingleback lizard crossed with a baby crocodile.

"Do you ever think we should have turned them back?" he asked Natasha.

"Steve. Are you sick of Frisbee already?" She chided.

"It's not that." The shield-dog had grown on him. Bucky said it was because it was a friendly, enthusiastic doofus, just like Steve. "I just sometimes wonder if it was wrong to change an inanimate object into a living thing and then leave it there. I mean, their basic nature has been changed, and now they're having to deal with – ” he waved his hand, searching for the words. “- I don’t know. Life? Awareness? You don’t think that’s putting too much pressure on them? They’ve never had to think or anything before.”

"If it was vice versa, I would agree with you. But they're living things now, and they seem to be adapting well enough; if we changed them back now it would be essentially killing them."

She reached out to scratch at Glocky's chin, and the little gun-lizard arched into the touch, making a noise almost like a guttural purr in her throat. Unfortunately that drew Frisbee's attention to the little creature. He scuttled up to the coffee table trying to get enough height to meet the gun-lizard nose to nose. Glocky coiled with his mouth open, hissing.

"Frisbee, leave Glocky alone," Steve warned. "I don't think he wants to be licked."

"See Steve? They all have personalities, we can't turn them back now."

Frisbee began bouncing up and down, trying to gain momentum to jump on the coffee table. The short blunt ridge of scales along Glocky's back rippled; his mouth opened wider, revealing the jet black interior. Glocky emitted a horribly familiar click, and both Steve and Natasha froze.

"Frisbee! Frisbee, down boy..."

The shield-dog whuffed at Glocky in frustration, and the gun-lizard reacted.

"Frisbee!"

There was a horrifyingly high pitched yelp, as the bullet ricocheted off the shield-dog and lodged itself in the ceiling. The shield-dog threw himself flat and wriggled under the sofa, still yelping and whimpering. Steve lay on the ground trying to reach him to comfort him, while Natasha snatched up Glocky.

"Is he okay Steve?"

"I think so. Lucky there's enough shield in him to be bulletproof."

"I thought I was short some ammo," Natasha muttered.

Glocky coughed up an empty cartridge shell and purred.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next up, a trip to the vets!
> 
> if anyone wants me to cover a specific scenario, let me know in comments :)


	4. Maintaining Your Pet's Health

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's hear it for wet weekends where you don't need to be out in it :) at this rate, I might even have another chapter ready for tomorrow.

“This is fascinating,” Bruce said, reading the results of the analysis.

“What is?” asked Steve, rubbing his hand comfortingly over the shield-dog on the bench, Bucky on the other side. After the close call with Glocky, and the evidence that Frisbee might not entirely be regular flesh and blood, they had decided he needed a check-up; partly to make sure he was really unaffected by the bullet, but also to get some better idea of what they were dealing with.

A real vet was out of the question, it would be unfair to both them and Frisbee. Bruce knew how to take this kind of weirdness in his stride.

An attempt to draw blood had only resulted in broken needles, and nobody really wanted to do anything to traumatise the poor shield-dog bad enough to get a blood sample. Fortunately there was plenty of saliva to go around; Bruce’s hands were liberally coated in the stuff. And the fur was apparently weak enough to clip some samples for analysis, though the scissors were quickly blunted.

“On a molecular level, both the saliva and the fur seem to retain some of the properties of vibranium to a varying extent, but there is a definite cell structure. We were thinking that the Transmogrifier turned inorganics to organics, but this...I never expected this.” He told them distractedly.

Steve exchanged a glance with Bucky, who shrugged. “So, what? Are you saying he’s metal or not?”

“I’m saying this Transmogrifier has created a new substance, an organic vibranium. Living metal. It’s – it looks like it has the regenerative qualities of normal, protein-based cells, same as all living creatures, but the vibranium and the proteins of the cells have fused somehow. No, not fused, that would imply that the original shield held some element of organic cells – or drew them in from a nearby living thing as part of the transmogrification process – but it’s more like an incomplete transformation.” He peered down through the microscope on the table beside them, still talking. “I mean, I only have the fur and epithelial cells from his saliva to go on right now, but they seem to be functioning the same as regular cells – nucleus, mitochondria, so on – but the cell membranes are made of a vibranium-protein compound, thin and permeable enough to allow the natural processes of osmosis to take place.”

Okay then.

“He ate a can of tuna last night,” Bucky supplied.

Bruce looked up from the microscope. “Well tuna shouldn’t hurt him.”

“No, I mean he ate the can as well as the tuna in it.”

“Oh. With no ill effect?”

“He didn’t like having the paper label stuck to the roof of his mouth, I had to pull that out for him.”

“Hmm.” He left the microscope and sample jars sitting on the table, and came over to the bench to inspect Frisbee’s mouth, Bucky helping to hold the jaw open for easier inspection. “It could be that he needs to eat metal to help regenerate his cells, the same way that we need to eat protein. Theoretically he should be eating vibranium to regenerate his cells, but I suppose that’s a lot harder to come by than steel cans. Hopefully more common metals will be enough.”

“I guess at least steel cans would be softer for him to chew than vibranium, too,” Steve pointed out. “His teeth might be vibranium, but if it came to vibranium versus vibranium, he might be just as likely to break a tooth.”

“That’s true.” Bruce rubbed Frisbee between the eyes, who happily leaned into the touch. “I’ll contact T’Challa and see if he or his scientists might know anything more that might help. I think I’ll have to keep taking saliva and fur samples regularly to check up on his health; if anything goes wrong, your bulletproof pet is going to be damn near impossible to operate on.”

Steve and Bucky both looked down at the shield-dog between them. “Guess you’re definitely not getting neutered then, pal.”

“Just as well he’s one of a kind then,” Bucky agreed.

Frisbee panted cheerfully at them both.

“The vibranium also means we won’t be able to use ultrasound, as it absorbs the sonar vibrations instead of returning them. And MRI is definitely out.” Bruce frowned. “Maybe try to keep him away from magnets, I don’t know what that might do. X-ray might be safe to try, though I don’t know how effective it might be. The reason metal shows up as solid white on x-ray is because it is so dense, but for Frisbee to function as he is, the various tissues in his body would have to have varying density. That  _might_  allow us enough differentiation to get a decent picture. I’d prefer to do any tests on the samples before we subject Frisbee to them though.”

He turned back to the samples, only to find them gone. So was the microscope. And the table beneath them.

Bruce glanced around the room in puzzlement then raised eyebrows at Steve and Bucky, who just looked blankly back at him. With all their focus on Frisbee, no one had seen the table leave.

“Right. Well, when I find them, I’ll get right onto that.”

***

“Hey Frank?” Staci called out across the room, her eyes on the security footage. “There’s a new table sitting in the hallway on level three. It looks like it has some science equipment on it.”

Frank grunted. “So?”

Staci shrugged. “Just wondered why it’s there. It wasn’t there earlier.”

“What’s it doing?”

She turned to stare at him, confused. “What do you mean, what is it doing?”

“I mean, is it rampaging through the building causing mass destruction? Is it opening up a portal for an army of space monsters to come through? Is it tagging the building like that pasty-faced little dickweed tried to do last night?”

“Uh, no. It’s a table. It’s just sitting there.”

“Then it’s none of our problem, Stace. If Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner want to move furniture or do science in the hallway, that’s their prerogative. It’s not our problem until the science escapes and we have to help catch it.”

“Alright, alright. Just reporting an observation like I’m supposed to. Thought it looked out of place, is all.” Jeez. 

She turned her attention back to googling species of birds, and when the security footage finally cycled back round to the same hallway, the table was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vibranium-protein compounds. Sure, why not, seems legit.


	5. Sleeping Arrangements

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short, but sweet :)

Steve woke in the early hours of the morning to the feeling of pressure against his upper ribs, twin somethings pushing insistently at him as if trying to force him off the edge of the bed. He realised he already was on the edge; carefully he manoeuvred around without falling off the bed, and raised his head.

Bucky was still fast asleep half hanging off the opposite side of the mattress. Stretched across the space between them, flat on his back, lay Frisbee.

As he watched, the shield-dog stretched out further, hind paws digging into Steve’s chest as he tried to take up as much width of the bed as possible. A forepaw twitched, and the shield-dog snuffled a sigh against Bucky’s back.

Figures that Steve got the ass end of the shield-dog.

The rear paws shoved again, and Steve responded by poking at the shield-dog’s belly, tracing fingers over the stripes where straps had once been. Frisbee snorted and squirmed. “Hey, I’m pretty sure we agreed that you would sleep at the _foot_ of the bed,” He told him quietly, hoping not to wake Bucky. The shield-dog snorted again, stretched all four legs out and tried to roll over; a difficult manoeuvre that Steve had to help with, given his odd shape. He had no idea how the disc-shaped creature had gotten onto his back in the first place.

Once he got his paws under him, Frisbee yawned and stared down at Steve’s face for a moment with an unusually solemn expression. “What?” Steve asked him.  Which was when the shield-dog pounced forward to lick Steve’s face.

Steve yelped and dragged up the covers in defence, but not before Frisbee shoved his tongue in his ear. He rolled and wrapped his arms around the shield-dog pinning him in a hug, and heard Bucky wake with a curse as all the jostling finally pushed him off the other side of the bed.

“What the hell?”

Steve laughed as Frisbee squirmed in his arms. “Frisbee decided to push us both out of bed to keep it for himself.” He let go of Frisbee who bounced across the mattress to pounce on Bucky.

“What, the king-size bed isn’t big enough for the three of us, huh?” He flipped the sheet over Frisbee who went into a frenzy under the cover, before crashing into Steve who was still on the bed. After a brief tussle he managed to wriggle free of the sheet and flopped panting at the foot of the mattress.

“Brat.” Steve called him affectionately. “That’s where you were supposed to sleep all night. Come on, I’d better take you outside.” He dragged on a pair of jeans and t-shirt, and stepped out, Frisbee at his heels.

Still smiling at the wake-up call, Bucky crawled back onto the middle of the bed and stretched out as much as possible in the warmth left behind.


	6. Fetch

Steve was in the middle of making breakfast when he got the call from Tony.

“I’ve got a package delivery for you, cap.”

“Oh yeah?” he replied distractedly, stepping around Frisbee to retrieve the bacon from the fridge. The shield-dog tended to lurk in the kitchen when he or Bucky were cooking, in the off chance some food might be dropped.

“Yep. One vibranium shield, 2.5 feet in diameter, 12 pounds, perfectly weighted and balanced for aerial trick shots, and best of all it won’t chew your shoes.”

“T’Challa came through?” Steve felt a surge of excitement run through him. He didn’t regret his choice, but he did miss having his shield. “Great! I’ll come down after breakfast and try it out.”

He quickly made breakfast, Frisbee dancing around him with a mix of excitement and uncertainty, having picked up on his mood but not understanding the cause of it. By the time breakfast was ready Bucky emerged still sleep tousled and adorable, drawn by the smell of bacon. Frisbee promptly took up position by Bucky’s chair, knowing that Bucky was a little more likely to slip him some bacon.

“Tony says he has my new shield ready, I’m going to go down this morning and try it out. Want to come?”

“Sure, I’ll come check it out. See if it’s as good as your old one.” He rubbed his bare foot against Frisbee under the table, who rolled over so he could rub his belly. “Wonder how Frisbee will feel about the new shield. Think he’ll be jealous?”

It wasn’t something that had occurred to Steve. “You think we’ll need to make introductions? Like bringing in a new puppy?” He half-joked.

In the end they decided that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to see how Frisbee reacted to the new shield in a controlled environment. Given the nature of Avenger work, the tower might be just as likely to be invaded by killer robots again tomorrow, so it was best to be prepared as soon as possible. If Frisbee decided to interfere during a fight out of jealousy over Steve’s shield, it could have potentially deadly consequences.

“Oh look, a family outing. How adorable.” Tony said as they stepped out of the elevator into the training level. “By the way, T’Challa said he and his scientist are very interested in studying your pet here.”

“He’s not a science experiment,” Bucky sounded offended.

“Well. Technically. The Cap here is who he is today as the result of a science experiment. So are you. And oh, hey, and your little dog too. Just to complete the matching set. Nothing wrong with that.”

Bucky bristled further, and Steve folded his arms. “We’re not going to let anyone hurt him.”

“Did I say that? There are many ways to study a living animal without doing vivisection. Give it some thought Steve, talk it over with T’Challa. In the meantime, shall we move our attention to the non-living vibranium in the room?”

The shield wasn’t where he had left it.

“Ugh.” Tony said when they found it again. He rapped his knuckles on the table top in disgust. “I swear this thing is even stupider than Dum-E. Completely useless. Do you have any idea how many cups of coffee I’ve lost to this table?”

Steve picked up the shield off the table and hefted its weight. It felt good, familiar, identical to the original. “You painted it already?”

“Sorry, did you want a new look?”

“No this is good. This seems right.” He looked down to find Frisbee staring up at him. He held the shield out to him, letting Frisbee sniff it over thoroughly. The shield-dog nibbled suspiciously at the edge of the shield, teeth scraping lightly over the painted vibranium.

Tony raised an eyebrow. “What is this? Adoption day at the ASPCA?”

Steve ignored him and put the shield on the ground. Frisbee circled around it sniffing. Worked his nose under the edge of it to flip it over, prodding it so that it spun gently on its convex side. Then sat back and looked at Steve like he didn’t know what to do with it next.

Bucky sighed. “I think that’s it Steve.”

Steve rubbed his hand over Frisbee’s fur. “Are we good, buddy?” A tongue ran over his wrist in reply.

“Oookay then. So now that that’s done – you want to suit up and give this thing a try?”

It handled like a dream. Steve quickly forgot Bucky and Frisbee watching from the corner as he dodged and deflected Iron Man’s blasts, the familiar weight of the shield grounding him.

Iron Man aimed a punch at Steve’s head, but he got the shield up in time, the blow ringing out as Steve felt the shield absorb the impact. Steve twisted away and brought the edge of the shield down hard on Iron Man’s arm, pulling a grunt from inside the suit. Taking a risk, he threw the new shield, which ricocheted off the far wall, its new trajectory aiming for a solid hit to Iron Man as Steve ducked and rolled under another psionic blast. He rolled to his feet expecting to see the shield smack into Iron Man’s head.

Instead a blur of red, white and blue picked it neatly out of the air before scuttling off with it.

"Frisbee, no! Bad shield-dog! "

Frisbee wobbled his body-wag but otherwise ignored him, preferring to drag the shield backwards into the narrow gap under the equipment cupboard where neither Steve nor Bucky could reach, while Tony looked on laughing his ass off.

In the end Tony and Steve had to lift the cupboard between them, while Bucky got down to tug the shield out from underneath. Frisbee emerged soon after, tongue lolling unapologetically.

 

*****

 

Steve woke with a jolt at the sound of the clang from the living room. It was quickly followed by the distinctive sound of the shield rolling around into a circle on its edge, then clattering to the ground.

"Ugh." Bucky said beside him, rolling over to cuddle deeper into the pillow. "It's your turn, I cleaned up the mess last time."

Steve sighed and got out of bed. If Frisbee needed yet another walk outside in the middle of the night...

He frowned as he heard rough snuffling grunts, suddenly worried. Was Frisbee sick? Did they feed him someth-

He clicked on the light as he stepped into the living room to find the shield-dog, frozen mid-thrust and eyeing him guiltily, still mounting his new shield.

“Argh, no! Frisbee, get off it!” He yelled. Behind him Bucky came running from the bedroom, already armed and alert.

Frisbee slid sheepishly off the shield and slunk towards them with a hint of body-wobble, giving the impression he knew he had done something wrong but hoping they wouldn’t notice. As he did, Steve saw that, yep well, that particular piece of anatomy was particularly dog-like anyway.

He was definitely going to disinfect that shield before he used it again.

Behind him Bucky’s shoulders were shaking.

“Tony was right, he does take after us,” he choked out.

“Really?” Steve replied wryly. “Because I’m pretty sure I’ve never humped my shield.”

“My hand...”

“That’s different.”

“Well yeah. But still, guess he’s picked up some habits from us, us being sex maniacs with no refractory period and all. Maybe you should keep your shield higher out of reach.” Bucky bent and scratched at the shield-dog’s back, who reacted like he’d just been forgiven his sins. “You lonely buddy? You want a mate?”

“We can’t exactly go out and find him another of his kind,” Steve pointed out.

“Your new shield...”

“We’re not going to transmogrify another shield. We’ll just have to train him out of humping things.”

“Seems a bit hypocritical, considering, you know, you had me bent over the coffee table, doing that thing with...”

“Yeah. Yeah, I remember it.”

“Maybe we should give him something he’s allowed to hump, and just stop him from doing it to anything else. His own stuffed toy or something. It _is_ a natural urge.”

“Machine washable,” said Steve, still distracted by the memory of the coffee table incident.

“Sure.”

It really shouldn’t have surprised Steve at all when Bucky came home one day with a shit-eating grin and a Bucky Bear, which he presented to Frisbee with great ceremony.

Frisbee adored it.


	7. Walkies

New Yorkers were remarkably inured to weirdness. Sure, they’d grab their phones out and start filming it, but after so many episodes of alien invasions, rampaging robots, flying space whales, rage monster smackdowns, and the odd giant gorilla up the Empire State Building, anything smaller didn’t even distract them from their arguments over whether the fallout from Asgardian family squabbles counted as “Acts of God” in terms of insurance.

So on a warm sunny day, when Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, went for a jog through Central Park with a squat red, white and blue dog-thing running at his heels, the creature barely raised eyebrows before onlookers went back to filming the Captain’s ass as it went by.

When the disc-shaped creature threw itself flat in the shade under a park bench, rolled over with its tongue hanging out and refused to budge in the face of Captain America’s coaxing, it just caused an outbreak of sniggers. When he sighed and bent over to try to awkwardly scoop the limp weight with the weirdly stiffened legs up into his impressive biceps, the audience forgot any lingering curiosity regarding the nature of the creature in their attempts to get the best picture of assorted parts of Captain America’s anatomy.

It was difficult finishing the run with a shield-dog squirming in his arms.

*****

“Don’t get me wrong Buck, I love having the company and I’m surprised he went for as long as he did, but his short little legs just can’t keep up,” Steve had said, towelling off damp hair from his shower. “It means I’m having to keep pace with him and finish early when he’s exhausted. I don’t mind doing that every now and then, maybe alternating days, but I need my full run too, so I won’t be able to take him on those.”

There was a clang from the kitchen. They both twisted around to see Frisbee knock over his water bowl on the tiles and lay in the resulting puddle, his tongue hanging out.

“I can take him for walks on the days you need to run,” Bucky told him, getting up to refill the bowl. “It’s no problem.”

“Are you sure?”

Where Steve enjoyed running, to Bucky it was a necessary chore, best done in the privacy of an Avengers-only, air-conditioned gym on a treadmill, where random civilian jackasses can’t take unflattering photos of him to discuss online. Captain America signed up for the media circus. The Winter Soldier had not.

If he were doing something impressive like martial arts he wouldn’t mind the public playing paparazzi so much. Unfortunately, public knife fights were frowned upon in New York.

“It’s fine, I’ll just take him for walks. If he’s running with you the other days, walks should be enough to keep him happy on the in-between days.”

Which is how Bucky found himself ambling along, hands shoved in pockets as Frisbee stopped to inspect every tree, fire hydrant and lamp post with intense scrutiny.

He was pretty sure that with all the weaving back and forth Frisbee was travelling three times the distance that Bucky was. And while Bucky brought a bag along for the poop, they actually left the park slightly cleaner when Frisbee happened up some discarded beer cans scattered around a park bench and ate them.

The used rubber got quickly dragged from his mouth though. Holding it delicately between metal fingers at arm's length, Bucky disposed of it more appropriately.

When Frisbee spotted a jogger up ahead with a weimaraner by her side, he perked up and huffed an uncertain bark.

“Stay here,” Bucky told him. Frisbee glanced up at him, then turned attention back to the bigger dog, quivering, but staying close. As they passed each other Frisbee and the weimaraner circled each other sniffing suspiciously. The jogger glanced down at Frisbee then did a very obvious double-take at the sight of the shield-dog. She looked up at Bucky and suddenly realised who he was.

“Um, hi,” She said nervously. “Is that...what is that?” Having finished sniffing each other over, the weimaraner cocked its leg against a nearby trash can. Not to be outdone by the bigger dog, Frisbee tried to piss just as high, overbalanced, flipped onto his back and then struggled to get himself upright again.

Bucky sighed. “It’s complicated.” He was pretty sure she snapped a photo of his ass when he bent to flip Frisbee back onto his feet, too.

*****

Back towards the edge of the park two uniformed police officers loitered by a food truck, watching the crowd – the older with the boredom of experience and a slow day, while the younger, clearly a rookie with a freckled brown face and impressive Adam’s apple, had the uncertainty of someone on the first day of their job and valiantly tried to watch everything at once.

He kind of reminded him of skinny Steve.

When the older cop spotted Bucky with Frisbee at his heels his eyebrows rose in disbelief, before changing to a more calculated interest that put Bucky on alert. The cop considered them for a moment – judging by his body language it was clear he was about to stir some shit, it was just a question of who that shit would land on – before he turned and nudged his partner, saying something to the younger cop with a jerk of his head in Bucky’s direction. The rookie questioned it; the senior officer gave him a push so the kid headed over, not seeing the smirking expression behind him.

Goddammit, this asshole was feeding his rookie partner to the Winter Soldier for kicks. Either he was trying to start something to try to portray the Winter Soldier as the bad guy to fit his own prejudices, or he _really_ didn't like this kid.

Bucky directed him his best Winter Soldier glare as was pleased to see the smirk falter. The rookie faltered too, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he fought the urge to look back to his partner for support, but he rallied and came on. Bucky was starting to like him.

The rookie’s natural instincts for self-preservation insisted on not taking his eyes off the Winter Soldier, even as equally strong curiosity had him trying to stare down at the shield-dog. Bucky read the name Mathers off his name badge.

“Excuse me, sir. You really should have a leash on your...” The kid blinked, clearly trying different words to call the thing in front of him, “...pet. He should have a leash here, it’s not an off-leash zone.”

“He’s very well behaved, stays close,” Bucky told him.

“He might be, but I’m afraid it’s for his safety as well as the safety of other people around,” he told Bucky, his Adam’s apple bobbing apologetically. “If we break the rules for your...pet, others will break the rules for their...pets. It – he? Should be on a leash in public, unless in an off-leash zone, and with a licence tag at all times.”

“So – that would be a dog licence I need to get?”

That threw the kid even more. “Uh. I guess so?”

“Uh-huh. And the tag is for...?”

“So the owner can be easily identified.” He told him with more certainty.

Bucky raised one eyebrow and looked slowly down at the shield-dog, drawing the rookie’s gaze down with his. They both contemplated the red, white and blue pattern with the prominently displayed star, and what it meant. Frisbee wiggled at the double attention.

“Alright then,” said Bucky drily.

Mathers flushed, then looked startled when Frisbee nudged against his leg wanting further attention.

“Can I...?”

“Sure, go ahead and pat him, he’ll love you for it.”

Mathers dropped to a crouch looking pleased, though Frisbee, who was now getting his chin scratched was looking even more pleased. “So is he...?”

“He used to be Captain America’s shield,” Bucky told him, dropping to a crouch beside him because he felt weird looming above him. “But then weird science happened.”

“That’s so cool,” the young cop said, apparently forgetting both nervousness and professionalism at the idea of having his hands thoroughly licked by Captain America's shield. “You know, I’m a huge fan of you and Captain America together, no matter what anyone else thinks. It’s great that you have a dog-thing added to the family now too – it would be nice to have something like that someday, you know?”

Which. Well, with that particular emphasis, that might explain the older cop’s shitty attitude towards his younger partner. And towards Bucky for that matter.

Bucky surreptitiously glanced up at the distant cop. He had the pissy expression of someone whose prank had just backfired on himself at the sight of the two of them acting friendly. Bucky was definitely going to talk to Steve about Mathers, see if there was anything they could do to help him out.

“What’s his name?” Asked Mathers, now rubbing the shield-dog’s belly as a hind leg jerked rhythmically.

“Frisbee.”

“Nice.” Said Mathers appreciatively. “You’ll still need to do something about the leash and license though. Please don’t make me fine Captain America and the Winter Soldier.”

Bucky settled back on his heels. “So, you got any ideas about how I can attach the leash and license tag? Assuming I can get him a dog licence, given he isn’t technically a dog.”

“Just put him down as a mixed or unknown breed. The markings and description are more useful anyway.”

“Sure. But I can’t get him a collar, he doesn’t have a neck to put it on.”

Mathers thought about it. “Maybe a harness? It would have to be a customised one, given his shape, but it should be ok.”

“A harness.” Bucky turned the suggestion over in his mind and saw further potential. “Yeah. Might give that a try.”

*****

When Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, went running through the off-leash section of the park two weeks later with a leash shoved into his pocket, the creature running at his heels sported a brand new harness, customised with pockets for poop bags, collapsible water bowl and tennis ball. From it dangled a license tag and a tiny shield with the name “Frisbee” on it.

When the creature began to tire and they stopped for water, Steve dropped to a crouch to adjust some parts of the harness; he patted himself on the back of his shoulder encouraging the creature to climb onto his back, slid his arms back through the harness and clipped some straps across his front. When he stood up again, the creature hung off his back looking very much at home as Steve jogged on.

It wasn’t the first time the citizens of New York had seen Captain America running somewhere with his shield mounted on his back. Slightly unusual that it was licking sweat off the back of his neck, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, the dog on which Frisbee is mostly based is definitely not allowed outside of a securely fenced area without a leash. And "stay" is something that happens 99 percent of the time, enough that you are then totally unprepared for that other 1 percent of times, leading to a game of "catch me if you can" around a mercifully quiet suburban neighbourhood at about 11 o'clock at night. At the end of which she meekly came back, rolled to her back in submission, stuck her legs out stiff (for maximum awkwardness to pick her up, I assume) and made me carry her 11kg furry ass home again. And then was so sweetly adorably confused about why she was in trouble.
> 
> Anyway - again, if you have any suggestions for Frisbee shenanigans, happy to hear from you in comments :)


	8. Food and Conversation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just for something different, this one's sort of from Frisbee's POV. Mostly because he made a convenient observer of multiple conversations, even if he doesn't actually understand them.
> 
>    
> BTW, being Aussie I'm sometimes having to translate words to American, barbecue - grill, lift - elevator, lounge - sofa, etc. so if you spot a slip-up, please let me know so I can fix. I'll be sticking to Aussie spelling though, unless it's a pronunciation thing.

“Man, I can’t believe I missed out on that fight,” said Sam, holding his hand out to Frisbee in greeting. Frisbee sniffed at it, then shoved his way under the hand demanding pats. “Sounds like it was interesting. Wonder what would’ve happened to Redwing if he got hit by that – what was it? Transmogrifier?”

Bucky shrugged. “Could have turned into a hawk or something. But it could just as likely have turned into a fish too.”

Sam looked affronted by that. “A fish? Why the fuck would Redwing turn into a fish?”

“It kind of looks like a fish.”

“He doesn’t look like a fish! He has wings! That’s why he’s Redwing!” he argued.

“Nah, I mean, you know those angelfish, right...” Bucky started to explain.

Frisbee sat between them looking up at them both as they bickered, before letting out a gusty sigh and wandering off to seek better attention elsewhere.

It was coming into summer and the days were already hot. They had opened up the doors of the common area out to the balcony and swimming pool, taking advantage of the late afternoon breeze fifty floors up that less fortunate denizens of New York missed out on at street level. Frisbee sniffed the air as the smell of cooking meat wafted in, and immediately turned towards it, following it out to where Clint and Bruce had started the grill under the watchful eye of Bowie.

He stared up at them looking pitiful.

“You’re not worried about her flying away out here?” Bruce asked Clint, gesturing to the bird with his beer. Bowie’s attention snapped to him as if assessing a potential threat.

Clint shrugged. “I was at first, but she doesn’t seem to want to. She seems to stick pretty close actually.”

A small, undefined part of Frisbee recognised that Bowie wasn’t going to stray far from her single flightless chick. That’s just how things worked. A much larger, more overwhelming part of Frisbee recognised the same flightless chick as a potential food provider, and edged closer to both him and the source of the mouth-watering smell whining pathetically. Because you never know, that’s how things _might_ work.

The other potential food provider apparently came to the same conclusion regarding Bowie, and was amused by it. “You know the term ‘a hen with one chick’? I get the feeling that’s what you have here, Clint.”

“What, you’re saying I’m the chick?”

“Clint. She was dropping Cheerios into your mouth at breakfast this morning,” Bruce pointed out. “Which is gross, by the way.”

“Oh yeah,” said Clint, like he’d totally forgotten the incident.

“I’m just glad she seems to know you can eat solid food and didn’t regurgitate it for you.” Bruce clapped him on the shoulder. Bowie instantly went into defensive mode, feathers fluffed and wings mantled, emitting a harsh squawking. Bruce drew back from Clint, startled.

“Ease up there mama bird, he’s not going to hurt me,” Clint told her, reaching out to stroke her feathers flat. In doing so, he knocked something off the bench beside the grill.

Frisbee immediately dived on it, snapping it up before anyone could take it away; he crunched down on it before the harsh taste and smell of raw onion seared his sinuses, making his eyes water. He promptly spat it out in disappointment and disgust, huffing and snorting trying to clear the lingering smell.

“Don’t like that one, huh?” Bruce said sympathetically, picking up the half-chewed onion. “I’m not surprised, if your sinuses have anything like the sensitivity of a regular dog, that must’ve been pretty nasty.”

Frisbee sneezed in answer and went looking for water.

Steve and Thor were sitting on the edge of the pool, bare feet dangling in the water, talking to Wanda, Vision and Natasha. Wanda was curled up on one of the sun lounges while Vision sat at its foot; Natasha stretched languidly out on the lounge next to them, while the tiny form of Glocky curled in the centre of the remaining sun lounge. Nobody seemed inclined to try to move him or share the space.

Frisbee gave the little gun-lizard a wide berth, slinking low and squeezing up tight against the wall in an attempt to give him as much distance as possible. Glocky stirred, golden eyes blinking open, and Frisbee froze under the stare, one paw lifted, for a moment uncertain whether he should go forward or back. He tentatively put the paw forward, then took another step; when that got no reaction, he edged past and scampered for the sanctuary of Steve.

Still snorting, Frisbee miserably rubbed his face into his leg, inhaling the familiar smells of Steve to chase away the smell of onion. Steve reached down to stroke a hand over Frisbee’s back, and he immediately felt better at the contact.

“I always wanted a dog when I was a kid,” Steve told Thor wistfully. “We just couldn’t afford another mouth to feed.”

“It is a good thing to grow up with an animal companion by your side,” Thor replied expansively. “There is a simplicity to the relationship that one does not have with other people. There is responsibility in it, yes; but with an animal companion you can simply _be_. To sit beside even the closest of comrades there will usually be talking, attention given and taken, a thousand things between you, but with a pet there is simply comfort in shared warmth with another living thing. Mutual respect, loyalty and kindness expressed without words.”

“Did you have a pet then, Thor?” Natasha asked him.

“Yes. His name was Bilgy. His excrement was most foul, and yet I miss him. We would wrestle and play, hunt and explore and cause mischief together, and at the end of the day he would curl up on the floor of my chamber.”

“And he was called Bilgy because...?” questioned Vision.

“He was a Bilgesnipe.”

“Of course. I see that there is something of a requirement when it comes to naming pets,” Vision mused.

Steve looked down at Frisbee beside him. “I am so glad I didn’t call you Shieldy,” he told him. Frisbee rubbed against him, not understanding but agreeing anyway.

“I really want a cat. I asked Tony if I could have one and he said no, but if I ask again now that everyone else seems to have a pet, do you think he’ll let me?” Wanda asked hopefully.

“Would you then call it Catty?” Vision asked her. Wanda just looked disgusted.

“You could try,” Steve told her, stretching. “I know Tony is a bit anti-pets, but he won’t be the one looking after it, you will. We’ll back you up, right Nat?”

“Where is Tony, anyway?” Natasha looked around frowning.

“He was trying to find out how the mechanical table is able to operate the elevators earlier,” Thor put in helpfully.

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “Friday wasn’t able to tell him?”

“It seems that Friday garners some amusement from the mechanical table’s antics and would prefer not to hinder it.”

“Tabley,” Vision suggested, as Wanda rolled her eyes.

“It might be Friday’s pet more than Tony’s then,” said Steve, grinning.

“The food’s cooked!” Bruce called out. “Friday, could you please call Tony up?”

There was a flurry of activity then, as bowls of salads and bread rolls, cutlery and plates were brought out of the kitchen and laid on the table. Frisbee dodged feet, as he tried to follow everyone at once, the enticing smell of food and the excitement of activity filling the air. When the table was laid out and everybody seated, he settled into his favoured position, laying patiently between Bucky’s and Steve’s chairs.

Tony finally emerged and sat down with a sigh.

“Figures you show up after the work is done and the food is ready,” Clint told him cheerfully, as he passed Tony the potato salad. “Where’ve you been?”

“Fitting a tracking device to that damn Table. At least that way when I put things down and they disappear, I’ll be able to find the fucking thing and check if it’s stolen them.”

“Tony, can I please get a cat?” Wanda asked hopefully.

“A cat? Why would you want a cat, cats are the worst.”

“I like cats. I’ll take care of it, you won’t even know it’s there.”

“Yeah, until it leaves hair everywhere.”

“I could get a hairless one.”

Tony pulled a face. “You mean those bald, wrinkly ball-sack cats?”

“They are not wrinkly ball-sack cats!” Wanda cried out, offended.

“Are you serious? They look like testicles on legs.”

The more juvenile minds at the table snorted at that, while Thor frowned. “What are these cats you speak of?” Clint quickly googled up a video of a hairless cat and passed his phone over to Thor, who inspected it and guffawed. “Yes! I too see the resemblance to bald testicles!”

Natasha poked at her food with an expression of disgust. “Can we please not discuss wrinkly ball-sacks at the dinner table?”

Wanda wasn’t about to let up. “The others have pets now. Even you have the Table.”

“I don’t want the Table. The Table is stupid, you have the Table.”

“You know, a cat would probably start pushing the objects off the Table,” Bucky pointed out.

Tony narrowed his eyes at him. “Don’t tell me you’re a cat person too.”

“Hey, who doesn’t love the fluffy little kill-machines.”

“I don’t. Dammit, we’ve already got enough of a menagerie between the bullet-spitting lizard, the overprotective heron, and – this...” he waved his hand at Frisbee, who tracked the movement hopefully, in case there was food in it. “The next person who gets a pet, it better be something clean and quiet and boring, like a fish or something.”

Sam choked on his coleslaw and shot a glare at Bucky, who smirked back.

“Come on, Tony. Let her have a cat, you know she’ll look after it properly.” Steve threw in. “If having it in the common area is a problem for you, she could keep it to her own floor.”

“Please?” Wanda widened her eyes in an expression similar to the one Frisbee uses on Bucky when he’s eating.

“Aarrgh.” Tony gave in gracelessly. “Fine. Get a cat. Not the ugly bald one, if there’s one thing worse than cat hair everywhere it’s the thought of a puckered naked cat’s ass sitting on benchtops.”

“Yes! Thank you!” She leaned across to hug him, despite his obvious discomfort at the embrace. “I promise I’ll get a short-haired, non-shedding one!”

“Okay, okay,” he patted her awkwardly on the top of her head. “Jesus.”

As they drew apart Wanda’s elbow knocked a plate with a rattle. “Oops.” Frisbee dove forward in anticipation, but skidded to a stop at the sight of the bread roll floating in red light. He hesitated; food on the floor was fair game, food on the table was off-limits unless offered, but food floating in mid-air was new. He didn’t know what to do with it.

He looked up at Wanda and whined in confusion.

“Oh hey.” When their eyes met, she seemed sympathetic. There was a moment, then the bread roll dropped the rest of the way to the ground. “I guess that one’s yours,” she told him, as he bit into the warm, buttery, bready goodness.

Finally.

“Hey Bruce, don’t you think Redwing looks a bit like a fish?” Bucky asked innocently, turning his phone.

Bruce tilted his head as Sam glared. “Oh yeah, I see it. Like one of those angelfish, but on its side.”

Sam slouched back in his chair with a huff. “God I hate you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Redwing totally looks like an angel fish: <http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Redwing>


	9. Separation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ones for you Sameshima_Shuzumi. May it be all you hoped for.
> 
> Hold onto your heartstrings kids. But also trigger warning for people freaked by body odour.

Something was happening.

Steve nearly trod on him as he hastily tried to pull pants on, and Frisbee quickly scrambled out of the way. Bucky was getting dressed too, pulling off the soft sleep clothes and exchanging it for hard, heavy ones with straps all over it. There were words being exchanged over his head, and he listened to their voices intently, quivering as he looked back and forth between them, trying to catch the meaning of all the excitement.

Were they all going for a walk? Or maybe in the car?

Bucky disappeared into another room and Frisbee hesitated, torn between following out of curiosity or staying by Steve. He decided to stay, jumping up on the foot of the bed to get a better view of Steve’s activity. It gave him a perfect view of what Steve pulled out of the closet.

Oh.

Something was happening alright. Something big, bigger than walkies, maybe even bigger than car rides.

The sight of the suit awakened something in him, like the edge of a memory or an instinct. It _meant_ something. It was something important, something he was a part of, and had been for a long time.

It meant that Steve _needed_ him.

He bounced back and forth on the bed, spinning in circles in his excitement as Steve shrugged into the suit. He whuffed his impatience as Steve dragged on one boot and then the other, pulled on his gloves and grabbed his helmet. He leapt from the bed and followed at Steve’s heels as he slid the straps of a harness over his shoulders, which, ok, it wasn’t the same harness they used their morning run, but then this clearly wasn’t just any morning run, and besides, it held the same edge of memory feeling as the suit, so Frisbee could work with that...

Steve picked up the other shield and attached it to the harness with a clang.

Wait. What?

He whined.

Steve turned and looked down at him. Frisbee wriggled tentatively, and Steve’s expression changed. He dropped to one knee in front of Frisbee, who wriggled a little more hopefully, because maybe he’d just made a mistake and picked up the wrong shield?

Steve was talking to him, his face still doing the thing with the expression. He could make out some familiar words like “Frisbee” and “Good Boy” and “Stay”, but the rest of the low rumble was just calming noise, which was totally at odds with the smell of adrenaline coming off him, so what did that even mean?

He heard another familiar rumble of voice and twisted around to see Bucky emerge with a large black bag slung over one shoulder, and an overlay of scent that was similar to Glocky but less organic. Steve and Bucky exchanged words again of which Frisbee made out the word “Food”, then Bucky dropped the bag, tromped to the kitchen from which came the unmistakable sound of his bowl being filled with food. Bucky’s big black boots reappeared, and he set the bowl down. It had three times as much food than normal, and a tin can as well. They both looked down at him expectantly. He looked back, confused.

Steve sighed heavily, scratching at Frisbee’s chin as he got to his feet. Bucky leant down to pet him with an air of finality Frisbee didn’t like, and picked up the Glocky-smelling bag. Frisbee followed them both to the door, which Bucky opened and stepped through first, while Steve turned. “Stay, Frisbee.”

Frisbee stopped. Steve gave him a sad sort of smile. “Good Boy.” And closed the door behind him.

Frisbee sat beside the door, whole body cocked listening to the footsteps fading away. He whined and pawed at the door when he couldn’t hear them anymore.

He stayed because Steve told him to, and he's a Good Boy. But if he's a Good Boy, why did Steve leave him behind?

****

He sat by the door for a while, waiting for them to realise their mistake and come back for him. They didn’t come.

It occurred to him that maybe this was a game; sometimes when he went on walks with Bucky and wandered a little way ahead, Bucky would duck behind some bushes or climb a tree and wait until Frisbee realised he was gone, pick up his scent and come find him. Bucky always laughed and gave him treats when he found him quickly.

Okay then. Maybe that’s what he needed to do.

He went to where their scents were strongest in the apartment, the bed they had all been asleep in not long before. It was unmade, their warmth faded but the sheets and pillows still smelling deeply of their skin, their hair, their breath. He jumped up on the bed to breathe it in, rolling around in the sheets and scuffing them up, wriggling between the pillows until they slid off the side of the bed, knocking a bedside lamp to the floor.

Oops.

He waited, but no one came in to sigh and roll their eyes at him. It obviously wasn’t enough to bring them out of hiding.

The next best place to search was closed to him. He pressed his nose to the crack under the door and snuffled back and forth, then sat back, considering. He couldn’t hear any sounds from the other side of it, but the presence of a closed door suggested that someone might be hiding behind it.

It was worth a look anyway.

He pawed at the door. When that didn’t make any difference, he used two paws, more forcefully. Paint started to peel away under his hard nails to land like dust on the floor, and with another hard shove something cracked, the latch gave, and the door swung open.

Their scents were relatively strong in here, not the same as in the bedroom, but more of a wet-human smell that permeated the air, no matter how well the thing in the ceiling tried to remove it. He looked around in the glass cubicle and checked inside the tub but they weren’t there. He sniffed over the floor near the sink where some stray bits of Steve’s facial fur had fallen to the floor during his grooming. He pulled the towels down from the rail and lay on them for a moment, appreciating the bathroom smells of damp hair and skin, shampoo and body wash, and the lingering scent of Bucky’s morning defecation mingling with something chemical and lemony that didn’t quite hide it from Frisbee’s nose.

He followed the defecation-and-lemon smell to the toilet and tried to nudge open the lid; he got it so far up before gravity took over and slammed the lid back down again, narrowly missing his nose. He backed up and knocked the toilet roll, which unravelled slightly. So he caught the end in his teeth, tugging it, unravelling it further.

Weird. It looks like such a small thing until you have the whole thing unravelled in a pile on the floor, then you realise how much is really there.

Nobody jumped out to scold him for that, either.

He wandered from room to room looking for them, prowling, sniffing, tossing cushions off the sofa and assorted junk off the coffee table. When he realised a slight push would open the kitchen cabinets, he started searching through all of the ones he could reach, pushing tupperware containers and cookware out onto the floor to check behind them. He inspected the ones higher up thoughtfully, standing on hind legs, but there didn’t appear to be any way to get up to them.

It didn’t matter. As the patch of sunlight moved across the living room, he began to realise the truth. They really weren’t here. And he no idea when they might come back.

With this realisation he moped his way over to the untouched food bowl. Their parting gift. He munched on it a little, but the silent hush of the apartment was weighing on him. He ate a couple of mouthfuls there in the kitchen, before taking the third mouthful into the bedroom with him, curling up in Steve and Bucky smelling sheets, hoping it would make mealtime less lonely.

It didn’t. There was no chatter and laughing, no sounds of Steve and Bucky eating their own meals, and everything was just wrong.

With a sigh, he left the food scattered through the rumpled sheets, abandoned, just like he was.

Now thoroughly depressed, he went and found the laundry hamper, knocked it over and buried himself in the pile of dirty clothes that fell out of it. He shoved his face into a pair of Steve’s worn boxer briefs and inhaled deeply.

He must’ve worn these ones while running or working out to smell so strongly. The rancid smell of old sweat and testosterone, the tiniest tang of urine, a hint of crotch fur. All the smells of a living Steve.

He licked the pungent crotch, wanting to taste him, and closed his eyes with a sigh.

“Frisbee!”

His eyes snapped open.

“Frisbee! Come here!”

Wait. That wasn’t Steve. Or Bucky.

Curious, he extracted himself from the clothes and padded out to the living area, only the underwear draped forgotten across his back.

“Good boy, Frisbee.”

Well, yes, he was a Good Boy thank you, nice of someone to remember that.

He looked around the empty living area suspiciously. Which was when he realised that it was the Air Voice.

He didn’t know where the Air Voice came from, it was just in the air, with no scent, no body to go with it. Sometimes there were other scentless air voices, coming tinny and small from the handheld devices people sometimes use, or louder coming from the screens they sat looking at. Sometimes those voices were familiar, and even though he couldn’t smell them at the time, he could remember what they smelled like, know that they were real.

This Air Voice though, he heard it a lot, and it never had a scent, never had a body. The Air Voice was higher pitched than either Steve’s or Bucky’s, closer to the voice of Glocky’s human. It talked to the humans a lot, and they talked back, apparently unfazed by its lack of source. Frisbee assumed that meant it wasn’t a threat, but this was the first time it had spoken to him, said his name. He didn’t know what to make of it.

When the front door swung open under its own power, he barked in shock, dropping into a defensive crouch.

“It’s alright, Frisbee. Come here, Good Boy.”

He quivered. Did the Air Voice open the door? If so, how?

Tentatively, he crept closer to the now open door, stretching out to sniff at it while braced to jump back if needed.

“Good Boy. Come.”

This is the door that Steve went through. Is the Air Voice going to help him find Steve?

Steve told him to stay. Air Voice is telling him to go. Both of them told him that he’s a Good Boy.

Choose, choose, choose.

Behind him lay dirty clothing and toilet paper and scattered tupperware. Before him lay the possibility of finding Steve.

It was a no-brainer actually.

He crossed the threshold.

“Good Boy.”

He wiggled at the praise.

Beyond the door, the foyer held the same hushed emptiness as the apartment behind him, though he could smell that Steve and Bucky had passed through here recently. The trail of scent led the length of the foyer to the shiny doors of the Little Room, which slid open with a chime as he approached. There was no one inside it; the Air Voice must be controlling these doors as well.

He stepped into the Little Room and inspected it thoroughly as the shiny doors slid shut behind him and a panel on the wall lit up. The Steve and Bucky smells were in here too, as well as older, fainter smells of others that he knew; the man that tastes like ozone and made his fur stand on end, Bowie’s chick, Glocky’s human. The man that always squawks and flaps his hands when Frisbee tries to lick him, which makes Bucky laugh. The young female that smells of power, the man that weirdly didn’t smell like anything much, the one that argues with Bucky, and the kind, calm man.

He felt the familiar swoop in his stomach, the sensation of movement. He circled impatiently, the forgotten underwear sliding from his back to drop to the floor, as he waited for the Little Room to take him to Steve.

It was the first time he’d been in a Little Room alone. There was more than one Little Room in the tower, but unlike every other room, only the Little Rooms moved. It was a little like being in a car, except in a car you were moving horizontally and could at least see outside, watch the world go past; the Little Rooms were a little more unsettling, feeling yourself drop but seeing no discernible cause of the movement. But like the Air Voice, everyone else seemed to treat the Little Rooms as normal, staring patiently at the doors waiting for them to reopen, so Frisbee quickly learned not to be afraid.

After a short while he felt his stomach swoop again as the Little Room settled to a stop. The wall panel chimed and the shiny doors slid open, spilling Frisbee out into a corridor. The doors slid shut again, hiding the discarded underwear still lying in the middle of the floor of the Little Room.

He knew this corridor; hearing noises from the rooms at the other end, he ran panting towards them, dodged between the legs of the table in the corridor, hope rising in his chest. Gaining speed, he barrelled into the common room throwing himself bodily onto the sofa with a thump among a flurry of feathers and squawking.

Bowie was here. And...oh, there’s Glocky, over there in the afternoon sunlight.

Bowie clacked her beak at him and fluffed her feathers in annoyance, but he was too happy to have company, any company, to be too put out.

He clambered onto the back of the sofa, balancing carefully as he surveyed the room. There was no sign of Steve or Bucky, no sign of Bowie’s chick or Glocky’s human. No sign of any of the people he knew.

He watched Bowie stalk back and forth in agitation, beak clacking, feathers ruffling and wingtips flicking as she stopped every now and then to peck at the window. It looked like her chick was missing too, and the inability to go find him was eating at her.

Maybe her chick was with Steve?

Frisbee glanced over at Glocky who snoozed, apparently unconcerned by the missing persons crisis. Whatever bond Glocky had with his human was very different to the one Frisbee had with Steve.

With a sigh, Frisbee lay down precariously balanced on the back of the sofa, his paws tucked under his body. At least he wasn’t alone now. The awareness of other familiar living creatures around him helped.

He nearly fell off the back of the sofa when the big screen suddenly lit up; three sets of eyes snapped to it as the blare of sound and colour and movement woke even Glocky, golden eyes staring unblinkingly up at the screen. The shapes moving on it were familiar; the voices were familiar.

Frisbee bounced on the sofa barking excitedly. That’s Steve’s voice! He didn’t know how he appeared on the screen, but he’s there! They all were!

Steve didn’t acknowledge him, even though he was standing on top of the sofa barking. None of the people did, and when Bowie pecked tentatively at her chick’s face on the screen and let out the gentle chirping noise she only used for him they both realised that their people couldn’t see them.

That’s okay, this was okay. Just hearing Steve’s voice was enough to make him relax, make him calmer than he’d been since Steve and Bucky had left. Even Glocky crawled around the side of the sofa to investigate when his human’s face appeared on the screen, heard her voice. Tongue flicking, Glocky hooked sharp claws into the fabric of the sofa and hauled his solid body up, voluntarily coming far closer to Frisbee than he ever had before. Apparently he wasn’t as unaffected by his missing human as it first seemed.

They stayed on the sofa in companionable silence as the shadows lengthened and the pictures and voices on the screen ran through, stopped and repeated. It didn’t matter that they said the same thing over. Frisbee couldn’t understand most of it anyway.

Eventually the mechanical arm arrived in the common room, the Air Voice directing it; they watched it with interest as it tore open bags and cans with its single clawed hand and dumped a mess of bait fish, beetles, worms, live grubs, dry kibble and tinned dog food across the floor of the kitchen.

*****

The team were exhausted.

The mission had turned out to be worse than expected, bad intel and a hostage situation turning what should have been a pretty straightforward raid on a Hydra facility into a complete and utter clusterfuck that they only just managed to turn around to save the day.

Most of them were sucking down Gatorade while staring blankly at the bulkhead of the quinjet or sitting with eyes closed in exhaustion; only Steve was still active, his knee bouncing up and down until Bucky lay a hand on it.

“Stop that.”

“Sorry.” The bouncing knee stopped, but Steve stayed frowning guiltily down at his feet.

“Whatever it is, it probably isn't your fault.” When that got no response, Bucky sighed. “Talk to me, Steve.”

“I’m just worried about Frisbee. We shouldn’t have left him like that, with no one to look after him or check on him.”

Bucky’s hand tightened on his knee. “I know,” he said quietly. “I thought of that too. We had no idea how long we were going to be away, and just dumped three meals of food on him hoping that would be enough. I mean, this mission took nearly two days, but we didn’t know that, it could have been a week.”

“God Buck, the look on his face when we left him? He looked so betrayed.”

“Hey, he’ll forgive you. But we need to make a better plan for next time, prepare better. Not leave him locked in our apartment all alone.”

Steve nodded, still looking as miserable as Frisbee probably was right now.

The quinjet landed on the landing pad at the top of the tower, and everyone got up and trooped out with winces and groans as various hurts made themselves known. Natasha smacked the button to call the elevator as half the team leaned against the walls looking forward to hot showers and sleep. The elevator chimed and the doors slid open to reveal a crumpled pair of boxer briefs lying forlornly in the middle of the floor.

Somebody sniggered in the ensuing silence. Probably Clint.

Natasha raised an eyebrow, stepping into the elevator to delicately nudge them with the toe of her boot. “So fellas, anyone want to own up to the Mr. Tickles underwear?”

Steve felt Bucky’s eyes on him and knew his face was going bright red. Dammit.

“Aaand that answers that question,” Natasha continued with a smirk.

“Man, really? Mr. Men underwear?” Sam complained.

“Hey, blame Bucky, he bought them for me.”

Bucky shrugged unapologetically. “They came in a seven-pack, one for each day of the week. They were funny.”

“I suppose after Mr. Tickle comes Mr. Happy?” Natasha teased.

Bucky winked at her. “And after that comes Mr. Messy.”

The elevator filled with groans and “hell naws” as Steve buried his face in his hands.

“Um, I think the more pertinent question is, what the hell are your goddamn underwear doing in my elevator?” Tony demanded, eying them with distaste.

Steve sighed. “I don’t know, Tony, I certainly didn’t put them there.” Bucky picked it up, frowning, as Tony hastily backed away from it like it carried plague.

“Friday?” Bucky called.

“Yes Sergeant Barnes.” Came the brisk female voice.

“Can we please get a status report on Frisbee?” He asked her, eyes on Steve.

“Certainly Sergeant Barnes. After you and Captain Rogers left on your mission, Frisbee was showing signs of distress at being locked in the apartment alone. He appeared to be searching for you,” she continued, while Steve’s face went pale with guilt. “I’m afraid he left your apartment in a bit of a state.”

“And now?”

“As the distress appeared to be the result of loneliness, I took the liberty of guiding him and the other pets to the common room, where they would be more easily monitored together and keep each other some company. Recordings of your press conferences have been playing on loop on the TV since they arrived, and their distress seems to have diminished drastically. In fact, they have spent the last few hours sleeping on the sofa together.”

Steve sighed in relief. “Thank you, Friday.”

“I suppose Bowie probably would have been upset too,” said Clint.

“Yes Agent Barton, her protective tendencies when it comes to your welfare translated into separation anxiety when she was no longer able to access you. Glocky on the other hand appeared to be far less distressed, although he is now exhibiting signs of closeness with the Frisbee and Bowie that he has never shown before.”

Natasha just shrugged. “I know he loves me, he’s just not very expressive, that’s all.”

“So, did Frisbee drag the underwear into the elevator?” Bucky asked.

“Yes, Sergeant Barnes. He is very scent orientated. Captain Rogers’ dirty underwear would smell particularly strongly of his body odour.”

“Ugh.” Tony was pressed against the wall to gain maximum distance from the offending clothing, and Wanda had her nose wrinkled up in disgust. Which was pretty unfair, Steve thought, given they all had a post-mission stink happening and were crammed into an elevator together.

“Friday, were you able to feed the pets?” Steve asked her.

“Er, yes. Dum-E...assisted, with the physical aspects of that.”

Tony closed his eyes. “Oh God, what did he do?”

****

Frisbee was snoozing on the sofa, Glocky curled up by his side taking advantage of his warmth while Bowie slept hunched with her head tucked under her wing. The familiar rumble of Steve’s voice still emitted soothingly from the screen.

A familiar chime made his eyes blink open. Someone was using the Little Room.

Steve’s voice was still coming from the screen, but now there was an identical voice from elsewhere. From the corridor.

Steve!

He could hear the footsteps now, and Bucky’s answering rumble.

He erupted from the sofa sending a disgruntled Glocky tumbling and waking Bowie with a flapping of wings. He bolted for the door yelping hysterically.

Stevestevestevestevebuckystevebuckystevesteve

He flung himself at a familiar pair of legs that buckled under his unexpected weight, and then there was Steve, kneeling in front of him, Steve’s face laughing and crying a little, Steve’s hands on him trying to hug him despite all the excited wriggling, Steve’s smell all around him, Steve’s voice telling him he’s a Good Boy, even though he just peed on him a little in his excitement. And Bucky was there, with all his smell and his hands on him, and Glocky was curled up in his human’s arms, and Bowie was cooing and chirping at her chick making sure he was okay, and Tony was gagging at the stinking crusted mess in the kitchen, and everybody was there.

And after they helped clean up the kitchen and Steve and Bucky took Frisbee back to the apartment they didn’t mind the mess. Frisbee lay next to the glass cubicle where he could see Steve take his shower, and when Steve stepped out he licked the hot water from his ankles making him laugh and kick a little.

And later, when they went to bed he snuggled down between Steve and Bucky and breathed in the scents of home, and all was good and right in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so, my dog does the whole underwear stealing/sniffing/licking thing, which is so gross that I felt an overwhelming desire to share it with you. Lucky you.


	10. Sketch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Author's Art.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a request for art, so here's a pencil sketch of what I imagine for these guys, because I'm an old fashioned pencil on paper doodler who can't draw on a screen to save her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glocky was the most difficult for me to visualise, so while i initially described him as being jet black, after bringing up pics of both guns and lizards I thought he needed more markings and horn bits to be more gun-y. So consider him almost-black (really dark grey?) with more-blackish black markings. Considering where the trigger would end up, that's now just a more-blackish black curved stripe up the side of his belly.
> 
> For the others, a little more straightforward, Bowie is black with that iridescent purple that birds have, silver beak, red eyes. 
> 
> Frisbee is...Frisbee :) paws and legs the same silver grey colour as his underbelly.


	11. A Table's Purpose

Staci elbowed open the door of the ladies’ bathroom, wiping slightly damp hands on her trousers like a slob because you always had to stand under the hand dryer for fucking ages for them to dry completely and her ten minute break was up. Maybe she should put in a request for one of those airblade ones to be installed, the ones where you slide your hands down between the air jets that seem to work so much better than the current one that just spat out hot air into the room. Because didn’t that just add to the atmosphere of a staff bathroom.

Caught up in her thoughts, she pushed through the door separating the staff facilities from the more public corridor, the panel beside it lighting up green then back to blue as the door opened and relocked behind her. One end of the current corridor led to public bathrooms open for visitor use; the other end turned right into the lobby, which she would then cross to get back to her security station.

Right where the corridor turned, against the end wall like it had been deliberately placed as a decorative feature, sat a table, with Thor’s hammer perched upon it like it was a sculpture on display.

It definitely hadn’t been there when she had gone into the bathroom.

She checked up and down the corridor, just in case Thor had randomly decided to come down this way, though she was pretty sure she would have noticed already, the Asgardian being kind of hard to miss. Still halfway expecting a prank, she approached the table with the hammer cautiously.

She’d been told that there was one particular Table (she could damn near hear the capital letter) that had a tendency to wander around the tower, though how it operated the elevators and what motivated it still seemed to be a mystery to the inhabitants. Every now and then someone would forget themselves and absentmindedly leave something on the nearest flat surface, only to return to find the flat surface had disappeared. She supposed that this was it.

“I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to be down here,” she muttered to the Table. The Table didn’t respond.

She rapped her knuckles gently on the table top, braced in case it decide to jump up and attack her or something, because that would be a fucking embarrassment, being attacked by a table in the line of duty. “Hey, come on. Thor’s going to want his hammer back.” Her eyes drawn back to the hammer, she hesitated, then reached out, grasped the handle and gave it a couple of experimental tugs. After all, she was only human, who wouldn’t give in to that temptation?

Totally unfair that it didn’t budge for her, when the Table had apparently been capable of carrying it down here. It had to be a trick somehow.

She circled the three available sides of the Table, considering it. It was identical from all sides, no sign of a front or back, nothing to suggest how it knew where it was going.

“Come on, Table! Come here!” She called, pitching her voice high, excited, like she was calling a dog.

Nothing.

“Find Thor! Go to Thor! Go on, seek!” She gave a pathetic attempt at a whistle, before self-consciously checking for anyone watching. She’d never quite got the hang of whistling. Not to mention she was whistling at furniture.

Not even a twitch from the Table. Frustrated, she went around to one end of the Table, braced with both hands gripping the edge and attempted to push the whole table out to the lobby. ‘Attempted’ being the operative word; it seemed that while the Table was capable of carrying the hammer under its own power, she was unable to move the Table with the hammer on it. Which she supposed closed the loophole for anyone trying to drag the thing away on a rug or something, but still, fuck Asgardian magic.

Glancing at her watch, she suddenly realised she’d been away from her post for nearly twenty-five minutes.

“Shit.” Leaving the problem of the Table for a moment, she jogged across the lobby, scanned in through the security door and skidded to a halt to face a scowling Frank.

“Where the hell did you get to?” he demanded. “That was supposed to be a ten minute break, Ciesiolka, you’ve been gone nearly half an hour.”

Staci huffed a frustrated sigh, directing the puff of air upward to make her fringe flutter. “I know! I’m sorry. You know that Table that’s been wandering around? It’s standing down near the bathrooms with Thor’s hammer sitting on it.”

Frank raised an eyebrow. “Thor uses the visitor’s bathroom?”

“No! I don’t think so. Probably not. I’m pretty sure the Table carried it down there.”

“Thor’s hammer. The hammer that no one can pick up unless they’re worthy of ruling Asgard or whatever. And this Table walked off with it?”

Staci flopped into the other desk chair with a sigh. “Yeah well, apparently it’s worthy.”

“It’s furniture.”

She flapped her arms in an exaggerated shrug.

“And you were so late back because...?”

She squirmed a little, embarrassed. “I was trying to coax it into taking the hammer back to Thor.”

“Coax it? What, by asking it nicely?”

Staci winced.

“Stace. It’s furniture.” He repeated it gently as if worried about her mental state. She rolled her eyes at him.

“Yeah, and two nights ago I was throwing a squeaky rubber hippo for Captain America’s shield to fetch. At this point, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Table talked back.” She rubbed her hands over her face. “Are we putting a call up to Thor to let him know where his hammer is? He’s probably looking for it.”

Frank shrugged. “If he wants it, he can always call it to his hand.”

“Straight up through seventy floors?”

Frank frowned down at the desk. “Good point. We don’t need that kind of expensive damage again. I’ll put the call through.”

****

Steve looked up from his conversation with Bruce as Tony wandered into the Avengers common room with an odd look on his face. “Something wrong Tony?” he called. Frisbee rose from his position at Steve’s feet and wandered over to Tony in greeting.

Tony just shook his head at Steve and shooed Frisbee off, heading over to where Thor and Clint were engaged in the strategically complex and high stakes game of Connect Four. Bowie watched on.

“Thor. Did you know your hammer is sitting on the Table in the foyer on Level 26?” he asked slowly.

“Ah, thank you Tony.” Thor dropped a yellow plastic token into place with a click causing Clint to throw himself back on the sofa with a groan. “Your night security personnel informed me that the Table was in possession of Mjolnir. At the time they had found it near the lobby, but alas, I arrived too late; the Table had moved on.” He frowned. “It moves quite quickly for furniture.”

“Ooookaaay. You seem remarkably unconcerned about losing your hammer.”

“It is not lost. Should I call it to hand, it will come.”

“Potentially causing millions of dollars of structural damage to my Tower in the process,” Tony pointed out.

“Yes. That did seem to be a concern of your security personnel too.” The Asgardian prince rose from his armchair. “On Level 26 you say? Lead on then, and I shall retrieve Mjolnir.”

Tony was shaking his head again as they crossed the room. “Sooo, we’re not going to address the fact that the Table is apparently worthy of carrying Mjolnir? The power of Thor, god of thunder and prince of Asgard could go to a table?”

Thor gave him a pitying look. “Tony, the Table is merely furniture.” He said it like he was explaining simple facts to a child.

Tony’s expression suggested he was trying to work out whether he was going crazy or the universe was colluding in some cosmic joke at his expense.

“Yeah, I gotta say Thor, that stings the ego a bit,” Clint added, moving Bowie to his shoulder and following them, uninvited. He turned to Steve and Bruce. “Are you guys coming?”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Why are you going?”

Clint shrugged. “I’m bored. I’m kind of interested in this Table that’s apparently more worthy than me.”

Well, when he puts it like that.

Steve rose to his feet as Frisbee danced around him, interested in whatever caused all the people to get up and start moving. “Bruce?”

Bruce had a thoughtful frown. “I’ve just had a thought about the Table. You guys go on ahead, I want to go up to my rooms for something, then I’ll catch you guys up.”

The four of them traipsed out to the elevator, Frisbee trailing behind them. Tony was frowning thoughtfully, still trying to work it out. “So, the Table can carry the hammer although it’s _merely_ furniture,” Tony stated, mimicking Thor’s words. Thor just grinned at him in response, so he went on. “And if you put it on the floor of an elevator, the elevator can lift it. So what is it? That they’re mechanical? Is that why Vision can lift it, because he’s android? Could Dum-E lift it?”

They stepped off the elevator into the corridor. “It is not that they are mechanical. I could not say whether Dum-E could lift it; even if he could, I doubt he could wield the full extent of Mjolnir’s true power. And Vision is able to lift it not because he is an android, but because his intentions are pure.”

“He was new when he picked up the hammer,” Steve mused, walking behind them. “He had all of the knowledge of Jarvis, but it was like he was new born.”

“No hate, no anger or arrogance, unselfish, uncorrupted. Time and circumstances might change that, though I hope that is not so.”

They turned the corner and there it was – the Table, with Mjolnir as its centrepiece.

“The Table’s intentions seem to be to drive us all crazy by walking off with our stuff,” Tony muttered.

“I doubt the Table has intentions at all,” Thor replied. “As it is merely furniture...”

“Yeah, thanks, we’ve established that.”

“...it has a function, a purpose, but not necessarily intentions. An elevator goes up and down. A table has things placed upon it. Neither of these have a choice in what they are or what they are able to do.”

Realisation dawned on Steve. “Like you said, no hate, no selfishness, incorruptible. It’s not that it’s worthy, it’s that it is incapable of being unworthy.”

“Exactly. You will find that although the Table is able to move under its own power with Mjolnir still atop it, if an unworthy person tried to move the table right now, they would not be able to.”

Clint gave the table an experimental shove. It didn’t budge. “So if it doesn’t have intentions, why does it go and lurk in dark corridors?”

“I have a theory about that,” came Bruce’s voice from behind. They turned as he hurried forward, carry a Chinese jade plant in a sturdy, white pot. “Thor, if you could remove Mjolnir?”

Curious, Thor picked up the hammer and placed it on the floor beside him with a clang. Frisbee wandered over to sniff at the hammer, as Bruce stepped forward and carefully placed the plant in the centre of the table top. He stepped back. The five men stood regarding it for a moment.

Nothing happened.

“Aww, you made it look pretty,” Clint said drily, eyebrow raised. “Was something suppose to happen? From the way you placed that thing so carefully, I was half expecting some Indiana Jones shit to go down.”

“Yeah, it was a bit anticlimactic,” Bruce sighed. “It just occurred to me that the Table might be operating on some basic instinct, or in this case being mechanical, more like basic programming. We put things on it, but they’re things we need again, so eventually we find it and take the things away again. So it goes looking for more. With the pot plant, it’s fulfilling its purpose.”

The others contemplated that. “And the thing with the corridors?” Clint asked.

Bruce shrugged. “Maybe it started out as a hall table before it ended up in Tony’s lab with Bucky’s arm propped up on it. That might have affected its programming. Have things put on you. Stand around in hallways.”

Clint nodded sagely. “It’s natural habitat.”

Bruce blinked. “What? No, it’s mechanical...it’s about programming. Like a Roomba programmed to return to its docking station. It just doesn’t seem to differentiate between hallways.”

They regarded the table a moment longer. “I guess, if nothing else we can just try not to put anything down on the table with the jade plant,” Steve finally suggested.

“I can work with that,” Tony said cheerfully. “By the way Bruce, now you've christened it with a pot plant, the Table is now officially yours. No take backsies.”

“Wait, what? I don’t want...”

He was interrupted by a loud clang and they all turned. Where before Mjolnir had been placed with the handle pointing straight up, it now lay on its side, Frisbee wiggling guiltily beside it.

“Did he just...?”

“Yes, he did.” Thor dropped to one knee, reaching out to pet Frisbee who cuddled closer in relief. “In my admittedly limited experience on Midgard, I have come to learn that all hounds are worthy, and Frisbee, despite his unusual appearance, is most definitely a hound in his soul.”

“Huh,” was all Tony could say, as Steve swelled with pride for his pet.

Thor picked up the hammer and slung it over his shoulder as they turned to walk back down the corridor. “I believe there is an animated story on the subject,” he told them, his voice fading as they moved away down the corridor. “That all Midgardian hounds are worthy of the rewarding afterlife...”

Left alone in the hallway, the Table shifted a little, before settling under the weight of its new burden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again guys, suggested scenarios are welcome!
> 
> p.s. edited the chapter title after posting because I could only think of crappy ones until after when I suddenly remembered the title of the dog movie. Ain't that the way.


	12. Grooming

The mud monster was still on his heels, emanating the putrid stench of stagnation, rotting vegetation, and pollution with a hint of shit and dead possum, a stench that seemed to transfer to everything it touched. Trying to breathe shallowly through his mouth, Steve snapped open his phone as he ran towards the tower.

“Friday! I need the shortest possible route through the tower! We need to avoid populated areas at all cost!” It was too late for him, he was already contaminated. All he could do was minimise collateral.

“Captain Rogers, veer left around the side of the building, you’ll find a delivery door. I’ll have it unlocked on arrival.”

He ran down the alley behind the building, his pace slow enough for the mud monster to keep up – he needed it to follow him. He needed to draw it away from crowds, to a place where he could deal with it properly.

He only hoped Bucky had the supplies ready for him.

He slammed open the delivery door as the keypad flashed green. The foul mess on four legs dove through the doorway after him, skidding on the slick flooring and taking Steve’s feet out from under him. He quickly scrambled back to his feet, nearly slipping again on the now wet floor.

“Take the corridor on the right, follow it to the end and take the second door from the end. That will bring you out near the staff cafeteria kitchens.”

“I’m not taking him through a food preparation area, Friday!”

“Not through it, past it. Once you’re past the kitchens, go down the stairs which will take you to the garage. From there you’ll have a straight stretch to the elevators.”

The elevators. The thought of being trapped in a confined space with this thing makes him gag, but it's his only hope. He’ll just have to pay the cleaning bill later.

He sprinted down the corridor past the kitchen, down the stairs and shoved through the door at the end, feeling hot breath on the back of his legs. A shortcut across the corner of the garage and he would have the mud creature trapped in the elevator where it couldn’t affect anyone else.

The elevator doors slid open as he approached. He skidded to a halt when the opening doors revealed Tony Stark.

He was wearing a cream silk suit. Knowing Tony, it was probably worth thousands.

“Tony, no!” Steve yelled helplessly.

Tony looked up, his face morphing into an expression of horror as the stinking muddy creature dashed past Steve to launch himself at Tony in cheerful greeting.

****

**Earlier that day...**

It had rained almost non-stop for more than a week, and cabin fever had set in.

There’d been no missions during that week – apparently shitty weather dampened the activities of bad guys too – and while the novelty of staying in and binge watching TV shows was good for maybe one day, Steve wasn’t one for sitting still. Neither was Frisbee. They had barely stepped outside the building during the week, making brief trips out only to stand miserably on the sidewalk with eyes narrowed and scowling against the driving wind and heavy rain before giving up and going back inside.

When Bucky pointed out that they had a gym downstairs if Steve needed to run, Steve had brightened a little and headed down in his workout gear, Frisbee at his heels. They returned soon after though, Steve grumpy, bruised and limping, while Frisbee wiggled apologetically. Apparently when Steve started running on the treadmill Frisbee had tried to jump on as well, taking Steve’s legs out from under him.

Bucky, on the other hand, was fine with sitting still. He was an ex-brainwashed assassin after all, sitting still during a range of uncomfortable situations was a large part of that. This time at least there was a comfy sofa, Netflix, books and assorted snack food.

Well, he would be fine with it, except that Steve was pacing and sighing and twitching, while Frisbee spun hyperactive circles and leapt from furniture to furniture like the floor was lava.

So when they woke to find the weather had finally cleared up a little, it was with a lot of relief that Steve chose to take Frisbee to the park for a decent run.

****

Steve drew in a deep breath of damp but fresh air. After days of being cooped up inside, it felt like that moment when he had first stepped out of the project Rebirth chamber, that moment when his lungs had expanded properly for the first time, with no hitch or sign of asthma.

God it was good to get outside.

It was by no means a perfect day, the sky still overcast, the grey clouds glowing weakly from the sunlight trying to shine through, with the possibility of more drizzle later. But the wind had dropped to a breeze, and most importantly, it wasn’t raining _now_. The air seemed clearer with the exhaust fumes washed from the air, and the usual rubbish and detritus of the streets had washed into gutters and storm-water drains to disintegrate into soggy messes in puddles, adding an unidentifiable smell that could only be described as ‘damp city’.

Frisbee bounced and spun beside him at the end of his leash, eager to let loose and run.

At the edge of the park the wet city smell gave way to the more organic smell of wet vegetation. Steve broke into a cautious jog at first, wary at first of slipping on the wet leaves on the pathway as Frisbee matched his pace impatiently. They weren’t the only ones taking advantage of the break in weather; there were plenty of others walking dogs, jogging, frazzled parents letting their kids loose to work off some energy.

Picking up speed, Steve aimed to do the same with Frisbee. Side by side, they pounded along the pathway, Frisbee’s breath huffing and harness jingling.

It was going fine until a squirrel darted across their path and up a tree. Frisbee lurched after it yanking hard on the leash; under the sudden strain a strap of the harness snapped, allowing him to wriggle free and run after the squirrel barking.

“Ah shit.” Coming to a halt, Steve bent to pick up the broken harness from the ground. It was nothing he could fix here and now. “Guess we’re going off leash for now, buddy,” he called out to Frisbee. He tucked the harness and leash into his pocket.

Frisbee glared up at the out-of-reach squirrel and sneezed. Turned around and pissed on the tree.

The rest of the run was good; for the most part Frisbee seemed content to run at a flat out pace alongside Steve, only veering from the path every now and then to piss on a tree or post, or to nose through the wet leaves after a scent. When that happened, Steve would slow right down to wait for him to finish his investigation and catch up.

Steve glanced at the sky to see the clouds were getting darker again – they might have to start heading back soon if it was going to start pouring rain again. Not that running in the rain bothered him too much, given some of the conditions he’d fought in, this would be, well, a walk in the park.

It took him a moment to realise Frisbee had wandered off the path again, and disappeared through the trees.

“Frisbee!” he called, and waited. When Frisbee didn’t reappear, he followed after him. And stopped at the sight before him.

To call it ‘mud’ didn’t do it justice; mud was just wet dirt, it sounded clean in comparison to the contents of the puddle that lay before him. Judging by the green scum in it, ‘primordial ooze’ seemed more accurate, though a hint of oil slick and a crisp packet floating on the surface suggested some of the run-off from city streets had found its way into the sludge. The stench of stagnation and rotted vegetation wafted up from the foetid puddle. All in all, it looked like the sort of thing that gave people mutations in the movies.

Frisbee was standing at the edge, paddling one paw through the muck with fascination. Seeing events about to unfold, Steve cried out in horror.

“Frisbee, no!”

It was too late. He was in.

Steve could only watch helplessly as Frisbee luxuriated in the putrid swamp, his brightly coloured fur quickly turning the same green-grey as the sludge. He sloshed and rolled, splashing and paddling about, before coming to a stop with a considering expression on his face.

“Come on Frisbee, get out, it’s time to go...”

Instead he shoved his face down into the mud. Steve closed his eyes and sighed in resignation.

Frisbee rose back to the surface and sneezed a spray of mud, his blue eyes startling amongst all the grey. He shook himself – pointless while he was still half submerged in mud – before rolling into it again.

“Frisbee! Come here! Now!”

Frisbee sat up and blinked at him through a faceful of mud.

“Come on!”

Frisbee paddled to the edge and hauled himself out. He bounced across the grass towards Steve.

“Nononono...” Steve threw up his hands defensively, knowing what was coming next.

Frisbee shook himself hard, coating Steve in a thick spray of ooze, rolled on the grass, sneezed twice and lay there, looking pleased with himself. He’d clearly had fun.

Steve wiped mud off his face. “Are you done? Can we go now?”

Frisbee gleefully bounced to his feet and leapt back into the mud with a splash.

****

**Meanwhile, back at the Tower...**

“Guys, I’m kind of worried about Glocky.”

Bucky looked over at the little gun-lizard on the table. It was true that his scales were looking duller than usual, the charcoal black turned greyish, and the jet black markings not standing out so much. When Natasha reached out to touch him, he flinched a little and hissed at her, mouth gaping in warning. Bucky’s eyebrows shot up – Glocky might react like that if anyone else tried to touch him, but this was the first time Bucky had seen him react to Natasha like that. Judging by Natasha’s worried expression, it was the first time she’d seen it too.

“Maybe it’s too cold for him?” Bucky suggested.

“It’s not like I’ve been taking him outside, Barnes. We’ve got the temperature turned up enough in here that it shouldn’t be a problem. Bruce, do you have any ideas?”

Bruce came over to sit at other side of the table, leaning forward to inspect the gun-lizard. Glocky’s head jerked around to glare defensively at him, tasting the air. When Bruce tentatively reached forward to touch him, Glocky backed away mouth gaping and ridged dorsal scales beginning to ripple tightly; recognising the warning signs, Bruce hastily snatched his hand back giving the little gun-lizard the space it obviously wanted.

“I’m pretty sure he’s just about to shed his skin, Natasha. That would be why he’s not wanting to be touched, even by you – the top layer of skin would be all tight and dry, it’s probably irritating him a bit.”

Natasha sighed, folded her hands on the table top and rested her chin on top of them, eye level with her pet. “Is that the problem, Glocky? You’re just cranky and itchy?”

The black tongue flicked out in her direction, golden eyes staring.

“A warm bath helps with normal lizards,” Bruce suggested.

“Hmm.” Natasha went over to the kitchen and rummaged through the cupboard for a shallow dish. She filled it with warm water and brought it back to the table, placing it in front of Glocky. His tongue flicked out again, but he seemed unimpressed by the offering. Dipping her fingers into the water, she dribbled it over him; he shook it off irritably and scuttled away.

“What do you need, _malen'kiy drakon_?” she asked him mournfully. “Bruce, he’s not a normal lizard. You said he’s made up of a weird organic-polymer mix.”

“Maybe he needs the same sort of maintenance you used to give him when he was just a gun.” Bucky suggested. “Gun oil?”

The three of them looked down at the gun-lizard. “It is a lubricant I guess,” Natasha finally said. “You don’t think it would poison him?”

“Nat, he eats bullets and spits them out as a defence mechanism.” Bucky’s phone rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket. The screen showed it was Steve. “Just offer it to him, if it’s not what he wants, he won’t use it,” he added over his shoulder to Natasha, as he stepped away to answer the call.

“Steve?”

“Bucky! We’ve got a bit of a pro– ACK!”

“Steve? What's happened?” Bucky asked, suddenly concerned.

“I'm here Buck, we’re okay, just after the rain some of the park is a bit of a swamp, and – Frisbee, no! Come away from the nice lady! Frisbee decided to go for a swim in it,” Steve continued, clearly distracted. “He's pretty filthy, Buck.”

Bucky couldn’t help but grin. “Swamp monster?”

He heard Steve sigh into the phone. “You have no idea Buck. I haven’t seen mud like this since the Western Front. Can you make sure there’s shampoo ready for when I get him home?”

“Sure. You okay to get him home?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s going to be fun. He’s all excited still, so I’ll let him run off some more energy, but the harness is – shit. Sorry ma’am!” Steve called out, away from the phone. “I’ll figure it out. I have to go, he’s just contaminated a toddler.” He hung up.

Bucky snorted with amusement and put the phone away. The familiar smell of gun oil brought him back to the table, where Natasha was squirting some into a shallow bowl. They all watched expectantly.

Glocky’s nose turned towards the bowl, the black tongue emerging again to taste the air. He approached the gun oil to sniff at it, before dragging himself over the edge and settling into it. His claws rose, one at a time, to rub the oil up his sides and over his face.

“That’s much better isn’t it, _moy pistolet_?” Natasha crooned. She gently rubbed the oil onto Glocky's back and the gun-lizard let out a guttural noise, golden eyes half-closed in bliss.

Bucky grinned down at them affectionately. “It must be bath day today. Seems we’ve got a mud puppy incoming that will need washing.”

“Have fun with that,” Natasha responded drily. “You know you can’t simply wash a dog right, you pretty much have to clean the bathroom and everything else after?”

He turned to smirk over his shoulder before he stepped out of the room. “You mean Steve will.”

 

****

By the time Steve got Frisbee up to their floor he had definitely used up whatever excess energy he’d had.

Tony had been left filthy and traumatised in the garage, slobber and muddy paw prints pressed all over his cream suit. While Tony raved about calling everyone from Animal Control to the EPA, Steve could only apologise profusely and promise to have the suit cleaned. And clean the elevator. And make a large donation to the charity whose function Tony was now going to be late for.  

Actually considering the stench, the suit was probably a lost cause. Possibly the elevator too, given the way Frisbee had been rubbing against the walls.

When the doors slid open it was to reveal the beautiful sight of Bucky armed with a large thick towel. As Frisbee surged forward, Bucky dropped to one knee with the towel stretched out, caught Frisbee in it with a cry of “Gotcha!” and bundled him up like a burrito.

“You know, in hindsight, I probably should have asked you to meet us down at the entrance like that,” Steve grumbled. He took his saturated running shoes and socks off, stripped off his mud spattered hoodie to wrap around them and rolled up the cuffs of his track pants before stepping out of the elevator. There was no reason to track it all through the foyer carpet.

“Yeah, probably,” Bucky agreed. “Did you have fun, brat?” This he addressed to Frisbee, bundled up and wriggling in his arms.

“He had a ball.”

“I hope you got at least some of it on camera.” Bucky wrinkled his nose as they walked through the apartment. “But you’re right, you both stink. You might have to strip down and get in the bath with him.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea,” Steve admitted. “I’ll get him in the shower and shut the door, that way I can wash him, wash me, and wash down the shower.”

Bucky had already laid out towels and the dog shampoo; also a bottle of Brasso, which gave Steve pause. Was he supposed to polish his dog? He’d never used polish on his shield, vibranium didn’t tarnish.

He decided to ignore it for the moment. Soap and water first.

He shut Frisbee in the shower cubicle, where he sat and whined while Steve stripped down and passed his clothes out to Bucky to be thrown into the washing machine. He stepped into the shower, detached the shower hose and directed the spray on Frisbee. Frisbee jerked back from it and tried to circle the cubicle in an attempt to avoid the water.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Steve told him. “You’ve been out there in the rain, you’ve been in the mud, but no, gotta keep away from shower water.” He ran his hands through Frisbee’s fur dislodging as much of the filth as possible before even trying the shampoo. The water running down the drain was nearly black.

He was rinsing mud from Frisbee’s belly when he felt the muscles shift and instantly shielded his face knowing what was coming next.

The spray of muddy water when Frisbee shook himself damn near reached the ceiling.

“Ugh. Thanks for that.”

Frisbee whined and started shivering pathetically. Steve frowned down at him. “You can’t be cold. It’s warm water, a lot warmer than the mud was. If you’re hamming it up to get out of a bath, make me feel sorry for you, it’s not going to work,” he went on, turning off the water and lathering shampoo through the shield-dog’s fur. “This is what happens when you play in the mud. You want mud, you get a bath as well. That’s the way the world works.”

“Steve, are you lecturing the shield-dog in there?” Steve could hear the laughter in Bucky’s voice from the other side of the bathroom door.

Steve sighed and moulded the fur on Frisbee’s back up into a mohawk. “We might have to visit Bruce later too, check you haven’t picked up any parasites or infections from that stuff. Though I don’t know whether that can even affect you.” Frisbee licked at his wrist mournfully.

It took two washes to remove all the mud from Frisbee’s fur. When the water ran clear of mud Steve opened the shower door enough to snag a towel. He gave Frisbee a good rub down, and once relatively dry, let him out into the bathroom.

Frisbee instantly started rubbing against the walls, rolling around and rubbing his face on the bathmat, snorting and sneezing. He snagged a corner of Steve’s towel between his teeth and dragged it down from the towel rack, rolling on it once it was piled on the floor. He sneezed one last time and looked up at Steve, tongue lolling and fur scruffed over his eyes.

Steve left him to his own devices as he cleaned up the shower and washed himself. When he finally stepped out, cleanly scrubbed, Frisbee wandered over to lick the water from his ankles, apparently having forgiven him for the bath.

“Buck, can you pass in another dry towel?” Steve called out. “Frisbee stole mine.”

The door opened, Bucky offering a fresh towel. “You had three towels,” he pointed out.

Steve just gestured at Frisbee’s pile of all three towels and the bathmat in answer, and began drying himself off. Bucky laughed. “C’mere brat,” he called Frisbee affectionately. “Let’s get you dry.”

They soon discovered that Frisbee didn’t like the hairdryer at all, going so far as to press his face into the corner beside the toilet and shiver violently. Bucky quickly snapped the hairdryer off and instead sat on the floor until Frisbee re-emerged and allowed Bucky to towel him dry properly, while Steve got dressed.

It didn’t matter how well Bucky towelled him off; emerging into the living area still brought on another round of rubbing against walls and carpet, scuffling about and kicking cushions off the sofa until Steve caught him and hugged him.

“You smell a lot better,” he told the wriggling shield-dog. He smelled of damp dog and shampoo, with a hint of metallic twang that was just part of Frisbee’s scent.

He felt Bucky approach him from behind, felt his warmth press against his back and his arms around his waist, felt him press a kiss against his neck. “So do you, sweetheart.”

They were warm and dry and content. They spent the rest of the day snuggled on the sofa watching movies as the rain fell outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's dedicated to the sheer unaldulterated joy on my creamy-coloured poodle-cross's face when he plays in the mud. and the much less joyful expression during clean up and ear infection medication.
> 
> Saw Infinity War today... holy farkk. personal opinion: brilliant and brutal. and amazed at how many people STILL walk out of a Marvel movie before end of credits.


	13. Nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for sleep paralysis and nightmare (if the title wasn't enough to give that away.)

He was back there, lying flat on his back on the table, strapped down and unable to move. He could feel the weight of the straps across his legs and kicked feebly against them, his arms lying like dead weight by his sides, whatever they had injected him with making them numb and heavy. He tried to remember name, rank and serial number, but he couldn't, and his tongue felt thick and heavy, unable to form the words.

He couldn’t call out. Couldn’t scream.

It didn’t matter anyway. Steve was gone.

His heart thudded in his chest, the only muscle able to move as he rolled his eyes trying to see further into the room. The room was large, though he couldn’t get any sense of how large, couldn’t see the ceiling above him. It was larger than it should have been. Around him was machinery, little lights blinking and beeping, reflecting off trays of scalpels and drills, needles, drawing his eyes to them and away from the shadows behind them.

There were people in the shadows, just out of sight. He could feel their presence, even as he couldn’t feel his own fingers. He knew them, even as his fuzzy, terrified brain couldn’t gain enough coherency to properly identify them.

His skin prickled with cold sweat and his heart thumped harder as he felt one of the unknown presences circle around him, staying outside of the perimeter of blinking lights and steel, still hidden by darkness. He rolled his eyes trying to track the unseen movement, felt the presence stand by his head, though he couldn’t turn his head towards it.

There were words spoken from the darkness, cold and sharp, though he couldn’t make out their meaning. He couldn’t understand what was being said, but he knew what was coming next. It had happened before.

This time Steve wouldn’t be coming for him.

A shaky whimper crawled from his throat at the thought. Hot tears welled from his eyes, overflowing to dribble out the corners to tickle their way around the curve of his cheeks to drip from his ears. He felt the presence shift above his head and heard more shadow words. The presence would only punish his weakness. Still, he couldn’t stop the tears.

He gasped as twin points of pressure formed on his chest, restricting his breath. The fingers in his right hand began to burn and tingle, twitching uncontrollably even as the rest of his arm stayed numb. He tried to blink away the blurriness of tears to see what was on his chest, dreading what he might find, as the weight shifted between the two points of contact and he struggled for air against the weight, the fear, and the snot-clogged nasal passages. A rough damp cloth brushed his face and he managed to jerk his head away from it a little. It withdrew for a moment before returning more firmly, industriously wiping away the tears in quick swipes, warm and damp and rough and...smelling of tuna?

The weight shifted again and he became vaguely aware of the brush of fur. His right hand spasmed as he lifted it with some effort, burying fingers in the fur to feel a warm body and beating heart beneath it. He gasped like a drowning man coming up for air and clung to the warmth, a living point of contact to aim for as he fought off the lingering effects of the nightmare.

The room was still in darkness, only broken by the tiny green light of his phone charging on the bed side table. Keeping his flesh hand in contact with the beating pulse above him, he reached for the lamp with the other, switching it on and chasing the shadows away.

He looked up to find worried, blue starburst eyes staring down at him.

He glanced across at the other side of the bed and felt his heart clench tight with panic to find it empty before remembering; Steve was in DC. Bucky was safe in Avengers Tower with Frisbee while Steve was in DC playing politics.

He struggled to sit up and the two paws on his chest moved away, the shield-dog settling back into his lap and nearly treading on his balls in the process. He didn’t care. The memory of terror and paralysis had left him shaky and raw, his spine tingling with the remembered sense of the presence at his helpless back. He pressed his back to the headboard and cuddled Frisbee close with his right hand, working the hand through the fur for both comfort and to shake off the pins and needles from sleeping on it, while the left pulled a knife from the bedside table.

They sat like that for some time, Frisbee allowing himself to be cradled in the circle of Bucky’s arms and legs as he stared into the corners of the room and the tension gradually seeped out of him. When Frisbee nuzzled tentatively at Bucky’s chin, Bucky buried his face in his fur and breathed deeply, the shield-dog smelling as much of home and safety as Steve did.

Frisbee licked the tears of relief from his face and stayed by his side through the rest of the night.

 


	14. Newcomer

The moment Frisbee entered the common area close by Bucky’s heels, he knew something was wrong.

There was a new scent. One he’d only ever smelled out on the streets, outside the building. Clearly one of them had managed to infiltrate the building. He sniffed the air suspiciously.

Natasha, Bruce and Vision were all gathered around on the sofa, with Wanda sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of them. They all seemed focused on something hidden by the angle of the sofa, all laughing and making dopey noises. Frisbee rounded the sofa and stopped short.

A little brown kitten stared back at him with wide grey-green eyes.

“Frisbee!” Wanda, who was calling him, smiling broadly. “Frisbee, come here boy! Come and meet Puck!”

Wait, they welcomed it in?

He looked up at Bucky for confirmation, who was watching the kitten with the sort of affectionate expression he normally only used for Frisbee or Steve. Bucky dropped into a crouch and stretched out his hand to let the kitten sniff his fingers. “Puck, huh?”

“Yeah, like the sprite in mythology.”

“I like it. It suits him.” Bucky tickled the little cat, rolling him over until he attacked the fingers. He settled onto the floor with his legs stretched out and called Frisbee closer. “Come on Frisbee, come and make friends.”

Judging by the actions of the humans, Frisbee suspected that barking and chasing the little thing would get him into trouble right now. He tentatively stepped over the outstretched leg to approach the kitten. The kitten watched him for a moment with the wide-eyed gaze that tried to see everything at once, then turned sideways as he approached, fluffing its fur and flicking its tail as it danced back and forth. Feeling the comforting weight of Bucky’s hand on his back, Frisbee leaned forward to sniff the kitten.

The kitten reared up, batted at his nose with first one paw then the other, then toppled over backwards as Frisbee jerked back and tripped over Bucky’s leg.

Everybody was laughing at him now. Bucky was kind enough to pat him on the back as he sulked against his side, but he soon moved away to film the kitten as it pounced on the flickering red light from Wanda’s fingers.

It went on like that all day.

The kitten got the attention. The kitten got filmed doing adorable things. The kitten climbed _his_ Bucky like a tree, and his traitor Bucky just let him and laughed with pride when it reached his shoulders.

“Nice work, little guy.”

Bucky never let _him_ climb up him like that.

When the sound of a can opener brought Frisbee out of his sulk and the mouth-watering smell of chicken and gravy drew him to the common kitchen, Wanda smiled down at him as he wiggled hopefully.

“Sorry Frisbee, but this food is for Puck.”

And then Bucky held him restrained while Puck got to eat all the chicken.

“No Frisbee, let him eat in peace. You’ll get fed later.”

The kitten stood with only his front paws in the litterbox, so that he urinated on the floor just beside it.

“Aww, points for trying Puck, but not quite,” Wanda laughed as she cleaned it up.

Not fair. Nobody thinks it’s cute when he pisses on the floor.

Bucky scooped the kitten into his lap for cuddles; when Frisbee pushed his way into Bucky’s lap for cuddles of his own Bucky quickly lifted the kitten up out of reach and then yelped as one of Frisbee’s paws dug hard into thigh muscle.

“Ow! Frisbee, you don’t need to sit on top of me!” holding the kitten one-handed, Bucky hauled the shield-dog out of his lap with the other. “Just settle there.” He pulled Frisbee to sit down against his side.

Which, okay, he still had contact, but still. The cat was curled purring in Bucky’s lap where _he_ should be.

When Natasha held the kitten cradled in her arms the sense of betrayal wasn’t so bad, but surely Glocky would have opinions about that.

Why haven’t they introduced Puck to Glocky yet.

Bowie definitely had opinions, and got very vocal about them when Clint touched the kitten, but otherwise ignored it.

There was a little orange fuzzy thing on the table that jingled whenever somebody moved it. Frisbee was intrigued; most of his old toys tended to squeak.

He caught the string on his new jingly-fuzzy thing and pulled it down off the table.

“Hey, don’t chew that, that’s not yours.” Bucky tried to gently pull it from his mouth, but Frisbee had had enough. He clamped down harder and let out the tiniest grumble of a growl.

Bucky’s eyebrows snapped together into a frown. “Did you just growl at me?” he said incredulously.

Shit. He did.

He instantly let go of the toy and whined in apology, knowing he had done wrong. He’d been a Bad Dog. After that it would be no wonder if Bucky wants the kitten instead of him.

Will Steve prefer the kitten too when he comes home?

Bucky was still frowning down at him, but dropped to one knee with a sigh. “What’s wrong buddy?” he asked gently, reaching out to Frisbee. “You jealous of Puck?”

Frisbee moved into the circle of his arms and pressed his face miserably against his chest. Bucky scratched at the fur between his eyes. “Yeah, I guess I haven’t been paying you much attention today, have I?”

Frisbee tentatively licked his face in response.

“Okay, but you can’t be too jealous of Puck though, alright? He’s just a baby, and its not his fault he needs looking after more. Besides, he’s Wanda’s cat, not mine. You’re still my favourite.”

Frisbee had no idea what he was saying, but his tone sounded nice and he had his fingers buried in his fur, so he wiggled in agreement.

The next day was an improvement. Bucky took him for a long walk in the park, played fetch and hide and seek, then returned to their apartment where there were no kittens. Bucky talked to him as he moved around the apartment, shared his lunch with him. When Bucky sat down to watch TV Frisbee snuggled against his side. It was enough to forget about the kitten and his jealousy for a while.

At least until they went back to the common floor for dinner.

The moment he scented the little cat his anxiety started up again, and he watched Bucky’s behaviour closely.

Bucky seemed to be aware of it; he petted the kitten when he first walked in, but then came back to Frisbee, stroking his fur and telling him he was a Good Boy, so Frisbee forgave him for it.

“Where’s Glocky, Nat?” Bucky asked, as they sat down to the dinner table.

“Wanda and I agreed that mixing a curious and playful kitten with an easily irritated gun-lizard was probably not a good idea,” Natasha explained. “Puck’s not as bulletproof as Frisbee.”

Bucky grimaced. “Good point.” He snuck a piece of pork down to Frisbee who had taken up his usual station by Bucky’s chair.

Frisbee had just swallowed the offering when a tiny “mew” caught his attention. With all the humans distracted with eating, the kitten had wandered over and was staring at him with his huge grey-green eyes.

Dammit. Maybe he should take Bowie’s example – ignore it, and maybe it will give up and go away.

Instead it came closer, stretching out tentatively to sniff at Frisbee’s face.

Getting up and walking away would leave Bucky unguarded. Instead he shuffled around until he could only just see the kitten out of the corner of his eye.

The kitten circled around to his face again.

He got up, turned, and flopped back down with a grunt, his back to the kitten.

After a while, he felt a small weight move its way up onto his back, the tiny prickle of claws. The kitten, faced with a low hill of warm red, white and blue fur, had proceeded to climb it.

He sat up and the kitten slid off, the claws raking through the fur looking for purchase. The kitten meeped a protest as it tumbled onto the floor and Frisbee settled back down, satisfied.

Bucky’s foot rubbed against his side, offering comfort. Frisbee pressed harder against it, seeking contact from his Bucky. He sank into the familiarity of the touch, the familiar clink of cutlery and murmur of voices and laughter from above, the smell of food and people and Bucky. With the press of contact against his side it took him a moment to realise a lighter weight was clambering up his back again.

He tensed. He couldn’t shake it off without losing contact with Bucky’s foot.

What should he do.

He felt the small weight scramble up to the centre of his back and settle there. Felt four tiny paws massage at his body, the tiniest hint of claws pricking at his tough skin.

It kind of felt nice. Like Steve or Bucky stroking fingers in his fur.

The massaging went on for some time before the kitten curled up into a little ball of warmth nestled into his fur, surprisingly strong vibrations emanating from it into the muscle below.

Now he really couldn’t move, not with this thing on him. His muscles gradually relaxed, feeling like he was melting into the floor.

He didn’t even wake to the sound of a phone camera snapping his photo above him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, unless I happen to get some amazing flash of inspiration, next chapter is likely to be the finale for this fic. I always intended for the final chapter to be titled "Take Your Pet to Work Day", so you will finally get to see Frisbee & Co. take out bad guys :)


	15. Downtime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news everyone! I experienced inspiration, so you get an extra chapter.
> 
> There hasn't been nearly enough Sam.

Sam glared down at the row of tiles in front of him in frustration. Not a single vowel, barring an O with an umlat thing that he didn’t know how to use.

He should have known what he was getting into, playing Scrabble with Natasha, Bucky and Clint. Should have known that Avengers, spies and ex-assassins wouldn’t play a board game by normal rules.

Fucking multilingual Scrabble. High school Spanish and a bit of Dari picked up during his tour in Afghanistan just didn’t cut it with these guys.

Seeing no alternative, he separated a B and an R from his tiles, adding it to an existing A on the board. Suddenly realising he had an S as well, he added it to the end.

Bras. 5 points.

Bucky studied the board for a moment, weighing his options, before rearranging his tiles and laying them out under Sam’s B.

Brytyjczyk. With a triple word value, 134 points.

Sam huffed in disgust.

 “Man, fuck you and your Hungarian.”

“It’s not Hungarian, it’s Polish,” Natasha corrected.

“Fine. Fuck you and your Polish then.” Sam threw himself back into the armchair, glowering. “How the hell are there so many Z’s and X’s in this thing?”

“It’s multiple packs tossed together. Mostly English packs, with a couple of other European language variations tossed in.”

“Yeah I can tell.” He scowled down at the umlat thing. “Multiple packs, and I still couldn’t get a recognisable vowel?”

“Mine didn’t have any vowels recognised by the English language either,” Bucky pointed out, retrieving more tiles from the box. “You’ll just have to work to overcome your dependency on English vowels.”

Sam lobbed the O-with-umlat-thing tile at Bucky’s head and got hit by a K in return. In the ensuing rain of alphabetized tiles, an E bounced off Frisbee’s nose. He jerked back and snorted.

“Boys,” Natasha sighed. Then turned a scathing glare on Clint when a J bounced off her chin and fell down the front of her shirt.

Clint froze, then bolted from the room in terror. Natasha delicately plucked the tile from her cleavage, scooped Glocky up onto her shoulder and stalked out after him like an offended cat.

Frisbee inspected the tile in front of him, lightly biting at it out of curiosity.

“Hey no, don’t eat that,” Bucky protested when he noticed. “Drop it.”

Instead he quickly picked it up between teeth and scurried under the sofa with it.

“Yeah, well-trained pet you’ve got there, Barnes,” Sam told him with eyebrows raised.

Bucky sighed. “It’s a game now. ‘Drag this thing under the sofa and see how badly they want it.’ Like Fetch, but where we’re doing the fetching.”

“Does he behave better for Steve than for you?” Sam asked curiously.

“Well, yeah. I guess Steve is sort of his number one above me.”

“Steve’s the alpha.”

“Yeah. Yeah, Steve does dominant well,” Bucky replied, slightly unfocused for a moment.

Sam winced. “Didn’t need to hear that, man.”

“No, but seriously. I like that Frisbee gets an attitude sometimes, you know?” He frowned down at his hands, clasped loosely between his knees. “I see those videos of dogs doing stuff on command, no matter how pointless or ridiculous it is, and it’s a little too close to home. ‘Your compliance will be rewarded.’”

Frisbee contemplated Bucky from under the sofa. He seemed sad. And besides, he wasn’t chasing him to get back the thing he’d stolen anyway.

He emerged from under the sofa leaving the stolen tile behind, and rested his chin on Bucky’s clasped hands, wiggling slightly. Bucky smiled and scratched at his chin.

“He might be a brat sometimes, but he’s there for us when it counts. He chooses to be loyal.”

“A loyal, bulletproof brat. Seems like the perfect fur-child for you two.” Sam got up and made a motion towards the sofa to retrieve the tile.

Frisbee immediately pulled away from Bucky and beat him to it, scrambling under the sofa with his hind legs kicking out as he defended his prize from Sam’s thieving grasp, making Bucky laugh out loud.

Sam sighed. “You assholes deserve each other.” Which was true, really. Even after being reunited with Steve and accepted by the Avengers it was rare to hear Bucky laugh open and honest like that, usually producing no more than self-conscious smiles or twisted smirks outside of Steve’s presence.  It was part of the reason Sam sassed him whenever he can.

 To Sam’s practised eye, the shield-dog had helped Bucky a lot.

“Lucky Steve likes assholes then.”

“Buck!”

They both looked up to see Steve standing in the doorway, face flaming bright red with embarrassment.

“Hey, you’re back!” Bucky smiled at him affectionately as Frisbee scrambled out from under the sofa to throw himself at Steve’s knees. “How was the politics?”

“Terrible.” He dropped to a crouch to greet Frisbee properly, digging fingers into belly fur until the shield-dog flopped onto his back and kicked his hind leg rhythmically. “You know it used to be that I felt like a dancing monkey put on show by the government, but given the way US politics have been lately I felt like the only sane person in a room full of monkeys trying to outperform each other.” Under the fading blush he looked tired.

“Screeching and beating their chests...”

“Slinging their own shit at each other,” Sam added.

“Flashing their genitals around, boasting about whose is biggest.” Bucky grinned.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Steve sighed glumly, coming around to sink into the sofa by Bucky’s side. Bucky rubbed his shoulder against Steve’s while Frisbee jumped up after him and pawed at his arm for attention.

Yeah, these assholes deserved each other alright.

Steve looked over the mess of Scrabble tiles and the flipped board. “I’m guessing nothing real eventful happened here while I was away then?”

“Aside from Hawkeye nutting the Black Widow with a Scrabble tile before legging it from the room. Steve. These fuckers play multilingual Scrabble. What the fuck even.”

“Yeah. They get competitive.”

“No kidding. Any advice?”

“On winning at board games? Don’t play trivia games with Vision.” Bucky suggested.

“Or Risk or any other territory accumulation game with Romanoff.” Steve added.

“I held my own alright with War on Terror though,” Bucky countered.

“Only because you and Nat formed an alliance and wiped the board with the rest of us.”

Sam was staring at them with eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Wait, there’s a War on Terror board game?”

“Oh yeah. Complete with spinning Axis of Evil.”

“Playing Mouse Trap with Tony was an… experience.”

Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “Mouse Trap? You’re kidding me, how bad could that be?”

“Tony decided to design a better mouse trap. It had a laser grid.”

“The miniaturized targeted missile system was cool,” Bucky mused. “A bit extreme, but cool.”

“Oh man.” Sam shook his head in disbelief. “I knew working with ya’ll was going to get crazy, didn’t know the downtime was gonna be even more insane.”

“You probably should have guessed it though,” Bucky pointed out. “It being us.”

“Yeah I know.” Assholes.


	16. Take Your Pet to Work Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter! I'm sorry about the longer wait, but this one is longer and more complex than previous chapters, tryng to set up the situation. And every now and then I would think of something funny to add. May it be worth the wait.
> 
> Warning, there is more death and destruction in this one because bad guys, plus mentions of and attempts to hurt animals. If it's any consolation, the animals do plenty of hurting too.  
> enjoy!

“Sir. I’m afraid there is an incident unfolding upstate that requires the Avenger’s attention.”

Tony groaned as Friday’s voice pierced his sleep fogged brain. He sat up in the tangle of sheets and squinted at the luminous numbers on the clock. 4:12am. “Show me.”

A holographic screen lit up showing an aerial view of city streets, people running from an explosion. Half of a building appeared to be reduced to rubble, smoke billowing from the shattered remains.

“The building is a bio-tech research facility. The cause of the explosion is unknown, but security footage from nearby cameras show a number of persons attempting to break into the facility not long before the explosion took place.” The holograph split showing multiple angles of black-clad figures. Tony inspected it as he pulled on a pair of jeans.

“Wait, pause that.” The scene of the armed figures froze, and Tony reached out to the holograph, spreading his hands to zoom in on the patch on a sleeve. It was partially hidden, but what he could see was familiar.

“Hydra.” Tony mused. “It’s not like them to do an obvious all-out assault, they normally prefer subterfuge. So what do they want in that building?”

“Motives are unknown, sir. But there is a possibility that dangerous chemicals may be released into the surrounding area by the explosion.”

“Alright.” He dragged on a T-shirt and stretched out his arms, calling the suit to him. “Tell Rogers everything you just told me and get the others to suit up. I’ll go on ahead, see what I can find out, and meet them there.”

“Yes sir.”

He felt the familiar impact of the armour striking, the comfort of it wrapping around his body cocooning him, the vibration of power thrumming against his skin as he walked across the apartment and stepped onto the balcony. “Let’s take down some squids.” The mask closed over his face and the repulsors roared, launching him into the air.

 

*****

 

“God dammit. Why do Hydra want to attack in the middle of the night?” Steve grumbled once he’d properly woken up and stumbled to his feet.

“Why do they want to launch an attack at all?” Bucky countered, frowning. He shrugged into the tactical vest. “That’s not like them. And the insignia? They haven’t worn that openly since World War Two, when they felt strong enough to flaunt it.”

“Hopefully this doesn’t mean they’ve gained strength then. Easier to know who to shoot at, at least.” Steve buckled himself into his suit and turned to Frisbee, who was watching the proceedings from the bed with the forlorn but hopeful look of someone who knows from experience that they won’t be invited, but is hoping maybe this time might be different. “Sorry pal, we have to go save the world again. Or at least a portion of it.” He rubbed a hand over Frisbee’s face. “Friday, could you please look after them again?”

“Of course Captain, I would be glad to.”

“Alright then. We’ll take Frisbee up to the common floor, on the way up to the roof.” He attached the shield to his harness and pulled on the helmet. “Ready Buck?”

Bucky hefted his bag of weapons. “Right behind you.”

When the elevator doors slid open on the common floor, Glocky was already curled up asleep on a throw cushion while Clint carefully tried to dislodge an indignant Bowie from his shoulder.

“Sorry mama bird, you have to stay here,” he muttered, finally loosening her grip and placing her on the back of the sofa. Frisbee watched the scene, looked up at Steve and whined.

Steve dropped to one knee and ran a hand down his back. “I know buddy. We’ll be home soon, I promise. Be good for Friday.” Frisbee sighed, watching forlornly as the three men stepped back into the elevator and the doors closed.

“Puck wasn’t there,” Bucky commented as the elevator ascended to the roof.

“Yeah, Wanda said she was leaving him in her and Vision’s apartment,” Clint replied. “Still doesn’t want him left unsupervised with Glocky, just in case. Friday knows he’s there, she’ll take care of him.”

“Fair enough.”

The elevator doors dinged open onto the roof, where Natasha was standing on the ramp of the quinjet, waiting for them. She raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, yeah, we just dropped the fur-kids off for their play date,” Clint grumbled as they walked past her up the ramp. “We’re here now.”

Natasha smirked as they strapped into their seats. “I wondered if you were staying back to babysit. We would never hear the end of it if Tony cleaned up this mess before we arrived.”

“I would be perfectly happy for him to finish this before we arrive,” muttered Bruce.

“Man, as long as we finish this by breakfast,” Sam added. Bucky grinned across at him, as Natasha put the quinjet into the air.

Twelve minutes after they left, a truck pulled up to the door of the loading bay a hundred floors below.

 

*****

 

Staci inspected the truck on the screen, zooming in on the bored face of the driver. She split the screen bringing up the view from the camera on the other side, the younger male passenger slumped in his seat and playing what looked like a Nintendo Switch. She recognised them both from previous visits, scans showing no signs of photostatic veils. “Frank, hygiene services just pulled up. Same two guys as last time. They’re early this morning though,” she added.

He grunted, pulling a face. “They probably want to get the job over with. It's not one I would want to do.”

Staci grinned. Like a lot of guys, Frank was squeamish on the subject of feminine hygiene. “Me neither, but speaking on behalf of the ladies employed here, it’s one I’m thankful for. Looks like they have paperwork for us this time,” she added, as the driver looked straight at the camera and wave a clipboard. “Want me to go down and sign whatever needs signing?”

“Nah. I’ll go.” He heaved himself up out of the chair. “Got to stretch my legs for a bit anyway.”

Staci leant back in her chair and propped her feet on the edge of the desk, watching the scene play out on her monitor.

 

****

 

Frank stepped out of the service elevator, swiped his lanyard to access the loading bay. Some days the area was organised chaos, receiving anything from laundry and cleaning services, to food supplies for the cafeteria, to tech and mechanical parts, the contact point for all the services that took care of the thousands of people living and working in the tower. At this time of morning it was quiet.

It made sense to do this so early in the morning, he supposed. Before regular office hours when nobody is around to see people carrying sanitary bins through the hallways.

Opening the external door to the loading bay required a hand scan for fingerprint recognition; the armoured roller door slid open with a mechanical clatter, and Frank waved the truck in. The door closed again behind it.

The truck stopped and the driver got out. On the other side, the younger passenger also got out, barely glancing up as he leant against the side of the truck and continued playing his Gameboy or whatever the hell it was. Frank took an instant dislike to the kid.

The driver greeted him. “Hey pal, sorry for making you come down here, but I’m afraid I need a human signature this time.” He handed the clipboard over and Frank took it.

“Actual old-fashioned paper paperwork huh?” Frank commented, reading through it. The plasticky coating on the clipboard felt slightly sticky in his hands.

“Yeah, our company’s not quite as technologically advanced as what this place is.” The driver shoved hands in his pockets and stared up at the ceiling. “I tell you what, it’s kind of creepy being let in and out by a computer voice that can see your every move. Nice to know there’s real live humans working here.”

“Aside from the Avengers, you mean.”

The driver grinned. “Sure, though I don’t know that they’re human exactly.” He glanced over at the passenger, still leaning on the truck. “Hey, you caught that pokemon yet?” he called out.

“Almost,” the kid grunted in response.

The guy shot Frank a look that clearly said “kids, huh?” Frank rolled his eyes in return, feeling some sympathy for the guy. He scrawled a signature on the last page and handed the clipboard back, wiping his hand on his pants to brush away the sticky feeling. “Need anything else?”

“Ah, I don’t think so. All the bathrooms are in the same place as last week right?” the guy joked. He opened the driver’s side door again and leant into the cab, stashing the paperwork. “Actually, there is something else,” he called out, head still in the cab.

“Yeah? What?”

The guy turned with a gun in hand and shot Frank square in the chest.

“Got it,” the Kid announced, and pressed one last button on his device.

Staci stared in horror as every single screen in the security room went black.

 

*****

 

The quinjet landed in a street near the ruin of the bio-tech facility, barely touching down before the team spilled from its exit hatch.

“Oh, look who decided to finally join the party,” came Tony’s snide comment.

“We don’t all have jets attached to our boots, Tony.” Steve shot back. “What’s the situation?”

“Civilians have been shifted out of the immediate area, emergency services on standby. There’s a number of human heat signatures still within the building, five civilian cars in the parking lot, could be cleaning staff, could be security, could be eager beavers trying to catch the worm.”

“Nice of Hydra to start wearing ID again then. Alright people, take out everyone wearing a Hydra badge, get the civilians out. Banner, you stay back in the quinjet; the place is already half rubble, no need to bring it down further. Should be simple.”

“Still seems too simple,” Bucky muttered, falling in on Steve’s left, as Sam and Vision took to the air. “There’s gotta be a catch.”

They entered the building carefully, stepping around areas where the floor looked unstable, ducking under sagging lintels and fallen beams. It looked like it had once been a reception area.

“I’m counting four armed Hydra in the north-west corner, fourth floor.” Sam’s voice came over the comms.

“We’re on it,” Natasha replied. Clint would be with her.

“Cap, there’s signs of life under the rubble. There’s someone down there.”

“Wanda, Vision, help Iron Man with that. Try not to destabilise the structure further when you clear the rubble.”

The chatter of gunfire sounded from a distance, the sounds of a fight. The distinctive hiss of Clint’s bow string being released close to the comm device in his ear. “Two down.”

“We should take at least one alive,” Bucky told Steve quietly. “I want to know _why_.”

“See what you can do Widow.”

Weapons snapped up as super-soldier hearing picked up on running footsteps coming down the corridor. A man in a singed and torn lab coat came skidding to a stop, hands raised. Steve lowered his gun.

“Sir, we’re here to help, we’re going to get you out. Are there others still in here?” Cap asked, trying to be gentle.

The man nodded too fast, blinking and shocky. “Security guy. Some cleaning staff upstairs I think, I don’t know.”

“Do you have any idea what Hydra might be here for?” Bucky pressed. The man shot him a terrified look.

An explosion rocked the North-west corner, a shudder running through the building. The man in the lab coat bolted past them.

“Dammit.” Steve swore. “Iron Man, there’s a panicking civilian headed your way, make sure he gets out. Nat? Clint? You alright? Falcon, do you have eyes on them?”

“We’re here,” came Natasha’s croaking voice. She coughed. “Sorry Cap, that’s a negative on taking one alive, he just blew himself up and nearly took us out with him.”

“Bucky and I will head down to the labs, whatever Hydra want is probably there.” He ducked under a sparking light cable. “Tony, did that civilian get out?”

“He’s out and handed over to Emergency Services. Two people recovered from the rubble.”

“Then if you can, come and join us in the lab. We might need your expertise on whatever’s down there.” A slight noise caught his attention and he instinctively threw up his shield in front of himself and Bucky. A hail of bullets clanged against it.

“Buck!”

“Finally,” Bucky grunted, aiming over the shield to shoot back. “All the suspense of walking through deserted corridors was getting to me.”

The fight didn’t last long; they advanced behind the cover of the shield, Bucky shooting and Steve angling the shield to bounce the enemy’s bullets back along their own trajectory. When he got close enough, Steve threw the shield it at face of the remaining Hydra agent, caught it on the rebound and bashed the reeling soldier over the head.

Four more down.

“Are you alright?” he asked Bucky. He’d been frowning down at the dead Hydra soldiers.

Bucky glanced up at him and nodded, but the troubled look stayed in his eyes.

“What?”

Bucky shrugged uncertainly. “Still just waiting for the catch.”

Steve regarded him a moment longer, then shook his head. “Come on.”

They moved through a set of offices, strewn with papers and stationery, before taking the stairs down a level and pushing through heavy double doors. Here the corridor was more clinical; smooth lino flooring and stainless steel, now coated with the smoke and dust of the explosion. Doors were hanging off their hinges, dislodged by buckled walls, water pooling from a busted pipe somewhere.

Movement caught Bucky’s eye and he turned, gun raised. A raccoon stared boldly back at him, lips peeled back off teeth in a snarl, before it squeezed through a narrow gap in the busted wall. Bucky caught a flash of metal in the fur on the creature’s back. He felt a shiver run up his own.

“Uh guys, just to add to the fun, I think they were doing experiments on animals down here.”

“Oh, poor things.” Wanda’s voice. “Can we rescue them too?”

Bucky and Steve exchanged a speaking glance. “That might depend on what’s been done to them.” Not all science experiments became suitable pets, and nobody wanted to be responsible for a Planet of the Apes style scenario.

They both heard the familiar roar of repulsors moving closer, followed by the heavy clank of the Iron Man suit landing in the room on their left. A few more clanking steps audible through the crooked door, then the door was ripped from its hinges and dropped.

“Alright Cap. Let’s see what the squids are after.”

Bucky pointed. “Whatever it is, I bet it’s through there.”

Towards the end of the corridor a set of previously secure doors had already been blasted open, the remnants of the small explosive scattered around it. The lab beyond it seemed to be much larger than the others.

They stepped inside and stared.

“That is...not what I expected.”

A corn cob the length of a boogie board lay on a bench in front of them.

“Uhhh, trying to reverse-engineer Pym technology maybe?”

“Something like this might solve world hunger, I guess,” Steve supplied, eyeing the vegetable dubiously.

“Hydra aren’t in the business of solving world hunger,” Bucky pointed out. “If they want this tech it will be for something much worse.”

Which was when the large doors at the far end of the lab reverberated under the weight of a heavy body throwing itself against it. All weapons snapped up, trained on the door.

“Think that might be it?” Bucky asked drily.

“Going off the ‘danger, keep out’ and biohazard signs, I would say so,” Tony replied.

The last Hydra agent came out of nowhere; Bucky trained his rifle on him but he ran low towards the giant doors, using the lab equipment for cover. There was a moment, a gap between the equipment – Bucky waited patiently, then pulled the trigger just as the body passed the gap.

Blood sprayed from the Hydra agent’s shoulder but momentum kept him stumbling forward. The last few steps were free of cover and Bucky managed to put two more bullets in him, but it was too late – he fell, hand slamming against the release button.

The heavy doors rumbled open.

“Oh shit, here we go,” Bucky muttered.

“Avengers, assemble on our location. The Big Bad is on the loose.”

“Cap, what is it?” Natasha demanded to know.

“We’ll know in a moment.” He braced himself.

Before the doors were even two-thirds open the creature shoved its way through, spread its wings and let out a deafening cry.

They stared at it in shocked silence. Tony eventually broke it.

“Fuck me. It’s a duck.”

There was a snigger over the comms.

“He’s not joking guys.” Steve gripped his shield tighter. “It’s a fifteen foot duck.”

The giant bird turned its head, eyeing the flash of light off Bucky’s arm with interest. It darted forward to peck at it and Bucky, startled, responded by punching it in the beak.

The flurry of feathers and flapping wings and the angry quacking nearly knocked him over. The smell of giant duck shit was nearly worse.

Once they’d gained some distance Tony flipped up his face plate and grinned over at Steve. “Hey Cap. Which would you rather fight; one Hulk-sized duck, or twenty duck-sized Hulks?”

“What?” Steve was confused.

“It’s a thing. Google it sometime.” He flipped the face plate back down. “Let’s cook this goose.”

“It’s a duck.”

Tony rolled his eyes in exasperation, even though Steve wouldn’t see it. “You always have to ruin a good line, Cap.”

He launched off the ground, only lifting three feet into the air before the repulsors sputtered and failed. He came crashing back down to the ground, his visual display fritzing. “What the hell? Friday, what’s happening?”

“I...sir, I – ” The voice sounded weak and distant.

“Friday, talk to me, tell me what’s wrong.”

“Sir, I believe...I believe I’m under attack...”

The tech went dead leaving Tony lying helpless in a lifeless cold shell.

 

*****

 

As Frank struggled to breathe The Driver crouched down, took his gun and tugged the lanyard from his neck, wiping the blood on Frank’s shirt. He leaned forward to look Frank in the eye. “You know, it definitely wasn’t the most glamorous cover,” The Driver told him, conversationally. “But it’s a job where people deliberately don’t see us. We walk into the building carrying bins, we walk out of the building carrying bins. Simple. And no one searches what we’re carrying because people don’t wanna know.” He stood up and turned away, the injured security officer clearly dismissed. “Hey kid, you still got it?”

“Stop calling me kid,” The Kid grumbled. “I’m 24.” He was still frowning down at his device, fingers working the screen. “Surveillance is down, communication is down. I’ve got external doors locked from entry. I've got enough control of operational systems that she can’t activate any of Stark’s gadgets, but this AI is a bitch; she’s rewriting the code, trying to reroute, as fast as I break through.”

The Driver narrowed eyes at him “I thought you said those boosters we planted throughout the tower would help,” he said accusingly.

The Kid sneered back. “They _are_ helping. But even with the boosters I’m going to be in a continuous shit fight to keep control of the system, so you’re gonna need someone else to snag Stark’s secrets.”

“I think I’m perfectly capable of doing that.” He carefully peeled the plastic coating off the clipboard and pressed it against the finger scanner. The scanner recognised all five of Frank’s fingerprints and lit up. The giant door rolled open again, allowing another truck to enter, out of which spilled two heavily armed squads of Hydra operatives.

“Is that going to be enough if the Avengers come back?”

“As long as you are doing your job properly and keeping the external communications locked down, they won’t be coming back soon. They are too busy with the distraction,” The Driver pointed out smugly. He turned to his troops. “Squad One is with me. We go up to the labs. Do not bother with heavy machinery; our aim is to collect as much information as we can – blue prints, plans, formulas, intel. Our own scientists will recreate it. Squad Two, now is our chance to strike a heavy blow within the Avengers nest. You are to set explosives throughout the building.”

“Sir. And persons we encounter?”

“Kill on sight.” He waved his hand dismissively.  “The loss of life within their own headquarters will make the Avengers seem weaker in the eyes of the world. How can they protect the world if they can’t protect their own people? Hail Hydra!” he barked.

The troops snapped out a salute. “Hail Hydra!”

“Hail Hydra,” The Kid murmured still concentrating on the screen as the two squads moved towards the internal door.

 

*****

 

“Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck!” Staci snarled as she furiously worked the security desk’s non-responsive console. The Avengers were out on a mission. Communications was down, even her cell phone wouldn’t work. Surveillance was down. Frank was down, and her gut clenched at the thought of him lying down there bleeding out alone.

“Friday, scan and report medical status for Frank Merendino.” She hit the manual alarm to alert any other staff on the premises that they had been invaded. She scowled up at the ceiling as the main lights went dark and amber light started flash. “Friday! Scan and report!”

The voice coming through was staticky and distant enough she could barely hear it over the pounding of her own heart. “Friday? You still with me?”

“Avengers Tower is under attack.” Came the faint voice.

Staci snorted. “No kidding. Can you get a message out to the Avengers? Hill? Emergency Services? Anyone?”

“All exsssstttpfffttication blocked. Tony Stark aware of system failure in Mark 52 suit. System failure in _sppfffffssssttt. Spssstack_ by giant duck.”

Uh, what?

“All ssssftt rerouting to defence. Attempting to regain control of opera _ssssfffffttt_.” The words petered out to static, before going completely silent. Staci waited a moment hoping for more. It didn’t come.

She sighed. “Okay. Okay yeah. Reroute to that then.”  Ditching the console she grabbed more weapons from the gun locker, dragging on a vest. Friday was right; it was time to regain control.

 

*****

 

Frisbee whined in confusion.

Something was wrong. The Air Voice wouldn’t talk to him, even when he barked insistently at the ceiling. The light was funny, pulsing orange and darkness. He didn’t like it.

More importantly, he was hungry and no one was filling his bowl up, no matter how many times he sent it clattering across the floor.

Bowie seemed to be feeling it too, pacing back and forward, flicking wingtips and ruffling feathers, clacking her beak in agitation. But it was Glocky that made the first move.

A series of cracking sounds rang out in the distance, and Glocky suddenly jerked awake, raising his head towards the noise. He puffed himself up and let out a guttural growl, a vocal warning to any other gun-lizards in the area that were considering encroaching on his territory.

After a moment another shot echoed up the stairwell; a clear challenge from the intruder then. The ridged scales rippled down Glocky’s back with a sharp clicking, and he walked stiff-legged towards the stairwell, stopping every few metres to perform push-ups to intimidate his challenger.

With nothing better to do and only an empty food bowl left in the room, Frisbee and Bowie followed.

 

*****

 

Hydra Operative #1 stalked down the hallway, weapon ready and prepared for any potential threat, as Hydra Operative #2 guarded his six. The strobing alarm light was a pain in the ass, creating moving shadows that kept him on edge, constantly having to make split-second judgements on whether a shadow was a person or just a trick of the light.

He nearly trod on the little black lizard near the bottom of the stairwell.

When the lizard hissed he cautiously trained his gun on the lizard, inspecting it curiously. The lizard stared back, mouth partly open and sides heaving as it proceeded to perform an odd stiff-legged dance, bobbing up and down.

Hydra Operative #1 glanced back at Hydra Operative #2, eyebrow raised. Hydra Operative #2 just shrugged back, perplexed. He reached forward and prodded the lizard with the barrel of his gun, pushing the lizard off balance partway through its dance, and causing it to hiss and growl. The scales on its back rippled and clicked.

A sudden shot rang out from nowhere and pain seared through him as blood sprayed from his hand.  Hydra Operative #1 screamed and dropped his gun which went off, shooting Hydra Operative #2 in the kneecap and resulting in a flurry of bullets, half of which didn’t seem to come from anywhere that made sense. He clutched at his hand and put his back to the wall, searching for the other shooter – damned if he could see where they were hiding – when another bullet lodged in his neck and he went down.

Hydra Operative #2 lay on the floor clutching his knee in agony and could do nothing but watch as the lizard strutted stiff-legged over to the dropped guns. It stared at them both intently for a moment as if watching for movement, tasted the air, then half-closed its eyes in a smug expression of triumph.

He might have been delirious, but he thought he saw the little lizard spit empty bullet casings at the guns before he passed out from pain and blood loss.

 

*****

 

“Shit! Iron Man’s down!” Steve yelled.

Tony groaned and hit the emergency manual release. The pieces of the suit came apart, allowing him to extract himself from the heavy metal shell. He extracted the comm unit from the helmet and shoved it in his ear. “I’m not down, my suit is down. Guys, this is a trap, they lured us out here to leave the tower undefended.”

“Friday – ”

Tony shook his head, anger burning in his gut. “They’ve managed to disable Friday, that’s why the suit went down.”

“I knew there had to be a catch,” Bucky grumbled, dodging a furiously clacking beak.

“We have to – ” a buffet of powerful wings sent Tony sprawling. Aware of his vulnerability without the suit, he pulled himself up using a workbench for support and grabbed a steel pole from the equipment piled on top of it. He wielded it like a baseball bat. “Alright then. How do you think a hulk-sized duck would stand up to a hulk-sized Hulk?”

“Probably not well,” Bucky lashed out with a kick that barely penetrated the soft downy feathers. The beak caught the strap of his assault rifle and shook him like a rag doll until he managed to snap the strap free. “Probably kill it and bring the building down on us.”

“Well, if I die here today, I want you to lie in my obituary,” Tony commented. “Something more dignified than ‘eaten by duck’.”

“Natasha!” Steve barked into the comm. “Are all the Hydra operatives taken care of?”

“All operatives down. The remainder of the civilians are out.”

“Then talk to the lab techs, see if they know what to do with this thing. Falcon, Vision, Scarlett Witch, I need you on standby; if this thing gets out of the building it might make a break for the skies. Hawkeye, you have a way with birds, get down here!”

“I’ve got new dendrotoxin-based arrowheads too, haven’t had a chance to try them out yet.”

“Even better. We knock it out, secure it, hand it over to be dealt with.”

“Better hurry,” Tony warned. “I hate to think what’s happening back at the tower.”

 

*****

 

Finally. Some people.

They didn’t smell like people he knew, but he knew that there were usually heaps of people throughout the tower whose scents were unfamiliar to him. He could smell that they were both male, that they had the same Glocky-smell about them that Bucky often has, that particular combination putting him at ease even though he didn’t know anything else about them.

That’s okay. He will make friends with them.

 Maybe, if he’s lucky, they might feed him.

He cheerfully trotted over to the two men who pointed the Glocky-smelling devices at him.

 

****

 

Hydra Operatives #3 and #4 blinked at the creature in the corridor.

Squat and furry, on four legs with broad paws and with facial features set into the body, the creature appeared to be Captain America’s shield made animal. It was fucking weird.

It began to wiggle and the edge of the shield split open, startling wide, a pink tongue rolling out. Hydra Operative #4 was suddenly reminded of some dumb fantasy book he'd read in jail out of sheer boredom, the one that featured an aggressively loyal walking Luggage that swallowed people. When the creature came trotting closer he backed up, training his gun on it. Hydra Operative #3 stood his ground.

The creature boldly walked up to Hydra Operative #3 and sniffed curiously at the barrel of his gun.

“What the hell is that?” whispered Hydra Operative #4.

“Hell if I know.”

The creature sat in front of them, wriggling slightly and looking up at them expectantly. He had no idea what it wanted.

“What’s with the wriggling?”

“I think it’s trying to wag a tail it doesn’t have,” replied Hydra Operative #3. “It’s acting like a dog.”

“Well, shoot it. We’ve all shot a dog before.”

Hydra Operative #3’s gut twisted at the reminder. Yeah.” That was one of Hydra’s lessons, to learn to pull the trigger on something you cared about. It had torn him up inside, though he couldn’t show weakness to Hydra. Not if he didn’t want to lose a lot more than his dog. Hydra could just make him comply anyway.

Now, he trained the barrel of his gun between two bright, trusting blue eyes, the expression so much like his springer spaniel so many years ago, and so different from all the human eyes that had looked up at him in terror, anger, begging, since then. Somehow the open trust in this expression made it so much harder.

It was too much. He closed his own eyes before pulling the trigger.

The bullet ricocheted with a dull ping and a yelp from the dog-thing, followed by a gurgle from beside him. He opened his eyes to see the bullet had somehow bounced off the creature and angled up under Hydra Operative #4’s helmet, lodging in his skull. The shot operative slumped to his knees, swaying for a moment, glaring at him in accusation out of the remains of his face, before the eyes glazed over and he collapsed to the ground.

He turned to find the dog-thing unhurt but staring at him with an expression of such betrayal that he felt the guilt wash through his body.

It was the last thing he saw before shadow and barbed steel swooped on him from above to gouge his eyes out.

 

****

 

Hawkeye skidded into the room with arrow already drawn, but had to take a moment to stare at the scene in front of him. Sure, they had said there was a giant duck over the comms, but that still couldn’t prepare him for the sight of three Avengers dancing around a _giant angry duck._

“Where’s a camera when you need it,” he muttered, lining up his shot. He hoped the modified arrow head was pointed enough to pierce the layers of feathers, but not so much as to injure the duck too badly.

“Hurry up, Barton!”

He picked his moment and let the arrow loose.

The dendrotoxin arrow pierced the feathery hide just under the left wing. The duck let out a deafening squawk of distress, turned and snapped the arrow with its beak, leaving the head of the arrow lodged in its skin. It stumbled a little but didn’t go down.

He let fly with a second arrow.

This one pierced the bird’s neck. It wavered, blinked, and then crashed to the ground, causing Steve and Bucky to roll out of the way or be crushed.

They watched the bird twitch a little before succumbing to sleep.

Weapons snapped up again as the ensuing silence was pierced by a girly shriek from the corridor. The lab technician ran forward towards the duck. “Oh no! Tiffany, what did they do to you?”

At least three different incredulous voices repeated “Tiffany?!” as the middle-aged man dropped to his knees and began stroking the duck’s beak mournfully. Natasha leant against the door jamb, eyes bright with the smirk she wouldn’t actually show.

Steve exchanged glances with the others then turned to the lab tech. “Uh, sir, it’s just a dendrotoxin, it – Tiffany, will just be asleep for a while, but she will be okay. I don’t know what kind of experiment you were trying to do to her, but – ”

The lab tech interrupted. “I didn’t do this to her! I would never experiment on Tiffany! I’ve had her since she hatched! I brought her in on Bring Your Pet to Work Day, and she ate some of the grain crops we were modifying. We kept her down here in quarantine trying to work out how to undo it and turn her back into my little ducky-poo.” He stroked the feathers on the duck’s head fondly.

Tony made a series of choking noises at that, as Bucky eyed the scientist with hostile suspicion. “You have Bring Your Pet to Work Days in a lab that does animal experiments?”

“No! I told you, we’re working on crops, we don’t use animals in experiments here.”

“What about the raccoon?” Bucky asked aggressively.

The scientist blinked up at him in genuine confusion. “What raccoon?”

Bucky glared a little longer, but nothing suggested the scientist was lying. Steve stepped in. “Alright. Here’s what we’re going to do – we’re going to get Scott Lang and Hank Pym to help you out with getting…Tiffany back to her normal size. Meanwhile I need you to work with the emergency services out there to keep her calm or sedated and secure to remove her from the building. I’m sure they will have a truck you can use. We don’t need a duck rampaging through the city.” He called through on his comm. “Falcon, I need you to prepare the quinjet. We’re heading back to the tower.”

 

*****

 

Bowie was pissed.

It wasn’t enough that her chick was away somewhere, but now nest-thieves were crawling through her home like rats wanting to steal eggs and eat the soft defenceless bodies of the young.

The nest-thieves had shells on their heads to protect them, but they had other soft bits to choose from themselves, between the layers of shell.

She shifted on her perch, razor sharp claws clicking on the metal bracket, and turned gleaming red eyes on the nest-thieves below.

 

*****

 

A muffle shriek from behind him made Hydra Operative #6 swing around, to find Hydra Operative #5 flailing wildly, his face engulfed in black feathers. The muffled screaming intensified as a piece of earlobe tore off and dropped to the ground.

Hydra Operative #6 had to make a choice – shoot the creature which would probably mean shooting his own partner in the face when the bullet passes through the creature’s body, or try to remove the creature by hand. He tried the second and swore as he instantly lost two fingers on his left hand.

The feathered creature turned to glare at him and he felt the hair prickle all over his body. He’d never been a religious man; but seeing those glowing red eyes bore into him like lasers, surrounded by the jet black feathers and the blood dripping from a serrated steel beak, suddenly he found himself believing in demons.

The demon let out a piercing screech reminiscent of pterodactyl ancestry, and his gun snapped up to take a shot. He fired, painting the wall with Hydra Operative #5’s brains. Too late.

Hydra Operative #6 went down in darkness and blood and steel.

 

*****

 

Staci aimed low around the wall and fired off a couple of shots, then pulled back. She didn’t think she’d managed to hit anything fatal on the Hydra Operator at the other end of the hallway. The heroes always looked so cool and confident doing this kind of thing in the movies, but Frank was probably dead, the Avengers were elsewhere, Friday was compromised, and she was the only armed defender inside this building to fight off these bastards. The truth was, she couldn’t think properly past the blood pounding in her head, she just kept shooting as long as they were shooting, and she really hoped it would be over soon because sooner or later she was going to run out of ammo.

So when something cold and wet brushed against her from behind she nearly shat herself.

“Godmotherfuckingdammit,” she gasped, when she turned to find herself nose to wet nose with Frisbee. She lay her free hand on his back, buried in the fur, to steady herself. “Dammit Fris, what are you doing out here, it’s not safe.” Comforting, to not be so alone, but definitely not safe. As if to emphasise the point, a bullet took out a chunk of plaster above her head. She twisted around to shoot back along the trajectory and saw the enemy duck back behind their own cover. Frisbee moved as if to walk out into the hallway and she grabbed him to hold him back. “No Frisbee, stay! Jesus, Captain Rogers would kill me if – ”

A dull thud sounded from the hallway, the sound of something heavy bouncing along carpet and grenade rolled into view.

The cliché in the stories is that your life flashes before your eyes before you die. At the very least there is a moment to think of your loved ones, or anything more meaningful than ‘oh fuck’. Staci’s mind blanked even on that.

Her muscles working on pure instinct, she curled her body tight tucked up against the wall, squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself.

She lost track of what happened next; it seemed like everything at once. The searing heat washing over her, the concussive blast, the wall above her exploding into a shower of drywall and dust, the floor shaking beneath her. The first thing she really became aware of when her brain finally came back online was grey belly fur on her face.

It was kind of nice. Soft, warm, a comforting weight. She supposed that waking up to a dog lying on you was a far better welcome to Heaven than any stupid pearly gates.

The weight shifted, becoming concentrated on two paws digging painfully hard into her sternum, the body above wiggling as if pleased with himself. Blue eyes stared down at her and a rough tongue swiped over her face, for a moment dipping into her partially open mouth. She sputtered, sucked in smoky air and coughed, sitting up and patting the creature reassuringly.

Okay. Shield-dog then. And given that her ears were still ringing and how singed she was, she was clearly still alive.

Which meant that any second now someone would come around that corner and try to kill her again. Joy.

She madly scrabbled among the rubble looking for her gun, pausing for a moment to blink as Agent Romanoff’s pet lizard hauled itself over the debris and made its way down the hallway toward the enemy. She searched faster. Heard a male voice coming from about halfway up the hallway over the ringing in her ears.

“What’s with the fucking lizard?” heard a shot ring out closely followed by a male scream and a body hitting the floor, just as she finally laid hands on her own gun.

“Holy shit.” A second male voice came from further down the hallway. Staci pulled herself up, gun in hand, peering around the remains of the wall. “There’s a fucking lizard shooting at us!” Staci swung around into the hallway, gun aimed. Hydra Operative #8 looked up from the body on the floor, eyes still wide. “Oh fu-”

She shot him in the face before he could finish.

 

*****

 

“Sir, it sounds like Squad Two are facing resistance out there. All seem to be unresponsive. Only one of them managed to send a message before he died.”

The Driver scowled. There was only supposed to be barebones security and maybe some cleaning staff around. Stark trusted machines and AI too much. “What did he say?”

“Uh.” Hydra Operative #9 shifted uneasily, clearly nervous about being the carrier of this particular message. “He said that there was a lizard shooting at them, sir.”

The Driver’s frowned deepened. “Just like that? That was the exact message?”

Hydra Operative #9 shifted again. “Yes sir. Although he called it a ‘fucking lizard’, sir. His communication ended with a gunshot.”

The Driver considered the information. Had the Skrull gotten involved for some reason? He couldn’t see why, but they were the only lizard-like beings he knew of that the dead operative might have referred to.

If so, maybe Stark had more valuable secrets than he first thought.

The security guard’s fingerprints and lanyard had gotten them into Stark’s lab, though some of the robots had to be locked away in storage areas, and they had to remove the power source from one particularly recalcitrant bit of machinery. The Kid was still concentrating on beating the AI’s attempts to regain control of the security and communications, but without the AI’s cooperation any tech secrets Stark was keeping for the Avengers could only be accessed within this lab. Behind layers of authentication and encryption, of course.

Luckily the Driver had IT skills of his own. He just needed a bit of time to do it.

Which brought him back to the matter at hand.

“Hey Kid.”

“What?” came the terse reply.

The Driver’s eyes narrowed at the disrespect but he let it slide. For the moment. “I need you to take control of surveillance. There is resistance in the building, we need to know who and where.”

“But I shut down surveillance,” the Kid protested.

“Then bring it back up again.” He let the _you idiot_ be heard in his tone. “You said you could gain control of the system. Clearly you overestimated your abilities.”

The Kid growled and shifted on his seat. “I overestimated nothing. I can do it. It's just, you ordered shut down of surveillance originally, not control.”

The Driver ignored the accusation. “When you have it, put it up on the screen.” He turned back to Hydra Operative #9 who came to attention. “Defensive positions only for now. Until we know what we are dealing with.”

“Yes sir.”

The Driver returned to his own device, already connected to a port, and kept hacking. Whatever this lizard creature was, he was damned if he would let it stop him from getting what he came for.

 

*****

 

The lizard creature in question crawled over a body, intent on his goal. He could taste what he needed on the air, knew it was close.

There.

Powerful claws cracked open the magazine, revealing the precious bullets inside. The intruding gun-lizard had lost the fight for territory and wouldn’t be needing them anymore. To the victor go the spoils.

Glocky gulped down the bullets like beetles.

 

*****

 

Staci stalked through the hallways, Frisbee staying obediently at her heels. Every now and then he wandered on ahead but she always called him back – she knew he was bulletproof now, but that didn’t quell the urge to protect what her brain kept telling her was a dog.

He veered off suddenly, his nose dropping to the floor. “Frisbee, here boy,” she hissed. For once he ignored her, following whatever scent to an office door. He pressed his nose to the crack under it, sniffing loudly, before letting out a quiet whuff. He lifted a paw to scratch at the door, looking at her expectantly.

She approached the door cautiously, gun raised and clicked her fingers low by her hip to call the shield-dog back to her heels. Frisbee shuffled out of the way and sat. She swiped her card to unlock the door, crouched low and pushed the door in.

It didn’t open far, shoving against a cleaning cart and sending a mop clattering to the ground inside. It seemed they’d found some of the missing cleaning staff.

Frisbee pressed himself against the gap, maybe twelve inches wide, trying to shove his way through. The sound of a full bottle hitting lino came from the other side of the door, followed by the scent of lemon detergent; Staci watched fascinated as the shield-dog managed to wriggle around onto his side, paws bracing against the wooden door to damn near roll the disc-shaped body on its edge through the narrow gap.

The cleaning cart fell over with a crash, the door swinging open far enough that Staci could slip inside.

The office was strewn with stationery and paper, now soaked with cleaning supplies; a desk was turned on its side in the corner, clearly being used as a barrier. Frisbee scuttled around the side of it causing squeaks of surprise to be emitted from the other side. Staci put her gun up.

“Hey,” she called quietly. “Hey, it’s okay, he won’t hurt you. That’s Frisbee, he’s Captain America’s pet.” She recognised the two women – Anna, who cleaned at night while she went through university, and Beth, older, with grandkids now.

“Staci.” Anna blinked up at her, clearly a little shocky.

“That’s right. Are either of you hurt?”

Both of them shook their heads in a no, a little too fast. Frisbee shoved his way under Beth’s hand, letting her clutch at his fur.

“There were other cleaners in the building, do you know where they are?”

Their heads shook again. And with the surveillance down, Staci had no way of knowing whether the others were escaped, hiding or dead.

“Alright.” Staci quickly assessed her options. If Hydra was truly hunting down all staff, a locked door, a cleaning cart and an overturned desk wasn’t going to save them. And while the idea of Hydra getting away with whatever they had come here for grated on her, ultimately, her duty wasn’t so much to protect the building but all the innocent people working within it. She had to get them out if she could.

“Alright,” she repeated. “I’m going to try to get you out. We’re nearly to the service elevator, we’ll take that down to the loading area.” That would give her a chance to check Frank too. “You exit from there, call _this_ number, talk to Maria Hill.” She grabbed up a pen and scribbled down the number on a stray post-it note. All security personnel had memorised the number. “You won’t be able to call it within the building, they’ve blocked communications. You’ll need to get away to make the call, you understand?”

They nodded numbly.

“They may have left a guard down there, so I need you to pay attention. Watch me closely. If I gesture to duck, you drop, if I put my hand up to stop, you freeze, and you don’t move forward until I wave you on, understood?”

They nodded again, looking like matched bobble-head dolls, Anna clutching the post-it.

“Okay.” She was sounding a lot more confident and authoritative than she felt. “Follow me.”

She eased the door back open, checking the coast was clear, then led them like frightened ducklings through to the service elevator. Frisbee stuck close to the two cleaning staff, sensing that they were more in need of comfort and protection. Staci was grateful.

It had crossed her mind that the elevators might have been locked down by the same device that had knocked out the surveillance system, but the elevator came when called – she supposed the Hydra operatives didn’t want to run up and down a hundred storeys’ worth of stairs either. She swiped her card and keyed in a security code that ensured an express trip to their destination, rather than risk the same elevator being called to a floor full of Hydra operatives. Reaching the loading bay was going to be a problem; anyone waiting below was going to see the panel light up showing the elevator about to arrive.

She positioned Anna and Beth huddled low and out of sight to one side of the elevator door, Frisbee standing over them to provide extra cover; Staci took the other side of the door, gun ready. When the door opened she swung around prepared to shoot.

There was nobody there.

Gesturing to Anna and Beth to stay where they were, she moved forward quietly – forced herself to walk past Frank the first time, her heart flipping in her chest at the sight – checking that the loading bay was clear before anything else.

The idiots were guarding the external door from outside forces, apparently trusting their team to neutralise any internal threats. She had plenty of time to line up a killing shot at Hydra Operative #10, though Hydra Operative #11 was messier.

With both down and the area clear, she whistled to Frisbee and the cleaners, and dropped to one knee beside Frank’s prone body, ignoring the blood seeping into her pants. She fought to calm her own pulse, in order to find his.

It took a moment. But there. Barely.

“He’s alive but he doesn’t have much time. I need you to –” She quickly looked around. “There. Bring that flatbed trolley over here. Help me get him on it.” It was dangerous to move him, but she couldn’t leave him here any longer. Between the three of them, they managed to get him on the trolley. “Take him with you, get to safety. Call an ambulance for him and call Maria Hill. Tell her Hydra attacked while the Avengers were away on mission.”

“Why don’t you come with us?” Beth asked, frightened.

Staci picked up the Hydra Operative’s gun, her own low on ammo, and put her hand on the finger scanner to open the doors. “I can't. I have to do what I can here.”

The two cleaners rolled the trolley with the unconscious security guard to the doors, Frisbee following them. Staci didn’t call him back – if he decided to go to safety with them, it was his choice.

She couldn’t help but feel relieved when he stopped at the doorway and watched them leave, before returning and following her back into the building.

 

*****

 

The mood on the flight back to the tower was tense.

Tony was strapped in, fuming, his suit useless in the corner. Bruce was barely keeping it together, the threat of hulking out on the quinjet just raising the stress levels of everyone on it. Sam at least had the distraction of flying the quinjet to focus on. Everyone else was sitting around in varying levels of anger and worry at the thought of their home being under attack.

“I hope Puck is ok,” Wanda murmured, clutching Vision’s hand.

Steve’s jaw clenched.

“They’ll be aiming for the lab,” Tony said. “Hydra deal in information and secrets, in the lab, with a good enough hacker and no Friday to protect it, they’ll be able to access all of ours. All our data, all our training manoeuvres, our missions, our medical data, our projects,” here he shot Bruce a significant look, who shuddered in response. “Our tech. Our contacts.”

“We go there first then. Take it back.” Steve ordered quietly. “Tony, you know the system best, that’s your priority. The rest of us fight.”

“Even the Hulk?” Bruce wanted to know. “I don’t think I’ll be able to hold him back, he’s pretty upset. This is his home too.”

“If it comes to it, go for it,” Tony told him. “My lab was designed to contain some serious explosions without damaging the rest of the building, it would be the safest place in the tower to let the Hulk loose. Besides,” he added, frowning, “I’d rather my lab trashed than in the hands of Hydra.”

Bucky detached one of his guns and offered it to him, eyebrow raised in question. Tony gave him half a smile and took it. “It’s been a while since I’ve shot one of these, but I guess I’m not in a position to be picky.”

“Guys.” Sam’s voice from the cockpit. “We’re about to touch down.”

 

*****

 

This was gold.

The Driver watched hungrily as the files transferred to his device. The Ultron Project. Specs on Chitauri weapons and technology. Medical history of the Avengers. Data on Vision’s abilities. Information about the Asgardians. Masses and masses of specs and blueprints for technology he didn’t even have a name for.

The file transfer and decryption was nearly complete.

The Kid swore suddenly, breaking through his thoughts. “Sir, surveillance is back up, and the Avengers are back.”

He left his device on a table while the transfer finished, coming over to the Kid. “Show me,” he commanded.

The visual came up on the screen, the Avengers piling out of the quinjet onto the landing pad on the roof.

“What about the resistance already in the building? Any sign of the lizard?”

“Uh.” The view changed, flicking through multiple rooms and hallways. Some of them showed dead Hydra operatives. “None that I can see sir.” The Kid yelped as one of the cameras focused only on a close up of a glowing red eye surrounded by jet black, like the fucking Eye of Sauron or some shit. They held their breath as they watched the pupil spiral down to a point, giving the eerie impression that the eye could see them watching it.

“Okay then. Looks like there’s definitely _something_ out there,” the Driver murmured, as the eye disappeared in a flurry of black, leaving only an empty corridor. “Luckily we’re nearly done here. Hold our position long enough to finish the transfer, then we fall back.” A secure elevator was conveniently positioned to get heavy equipment in and out of the lab. And if he had to leave the remaining operatives behind to keep the Avengers busy and secure his own escape, so be it.

He turned back towards his device and frowned. Looked around in confusion that quickly grew into towering anger.

“Right,” he spat. “Who the _fuck_ took the device?”

 

*****

 

Frisbee stopped suddenly, staring up at the ceiling and cocked to one side as if listening. Staci skidded to a stop a few paces ahead of him and watched his body language carefully, trusting him to sense any danger before she did.

He stiffened, quivering, and then to Staci’s surprise, his quiet whine worked up to a yelping-howl of excitement.

He whirled and ran to the door of the stairwell, scrabbling at it frantically. She opened the door and he ran up the stairs, as fast as his squat body could take him.

She pounded up after him, suddenly hopeful.

 

*****

 

“I left it right there on the fucking table!” the Driver snarled.

Hydra Operative #9 shifted uneasily, looking at the empty spot the Driver was pointing to. “S-sir, there is no table...”

The Driver stared at him for a moment, drew his gun and shot him.

The Kid ducked his head over his own device and everyone else tried to avoid the Driver’s eye when he turned around. “I did not collect fucking sanitary bins for four fucking weeks to build a cover only to fail the fucking mission now!” he roared. “Find it!” The squad scrambled into action; the Kid blinked as the Driver snatched his device out of his hands to start the file transfer over.

He considered reminding the Driver that he still needed the device to keep fending off the AI running the building. A glance at the dead operative spilling brains across the floor changed his mind.

Maybe it was time to scout out his own exit.

 

*****

 

Glocky dragged himself through the ductwork, his belly heavy with ammunition. He paused at an intersection, tasted the air, considering which way to go.

A shot rang out in the distance and his head swivelled to the left with a growl. That decided him.

He was fully loaded and headed for the lab.

 

*****

 

Staci nearly tripped over Frisbee as he suddenly stopped partway up a flight of stairs, changed his mind and doubled back. He went to the door on the landing they had just passed, listening intently and pressing his nose to the crack, whining and scrabbling frantically at the door. She opened it to see the Avengers grouped around the elevator.

Frisbee shot off down the hallway, as Staci sagged with relief. Thank God.

Captain America looked up at the excited shield-dog tearing towards him and dropped to one knee to catch him.

“Shush, shush Frisbee,” he hushed, holding the wriggling shield-dog. “Hey, easy boy, keep the noise down. Yes, I missed you too.” Staci jogged towards them.

“Sir!” She threw a tired salute. “Mr Stark.” Who was not in his Iron Man suit. Why?

Mr. Stark looked her over. She probably looked like shit. “Sez-oka right?”

“Sure, close enough.” Now wasn’t the time to correct pronunciation. “Sir, Hydra operatives have invaded the building.”

“We know. Come with us while you give your sitrep, Ciesiolka.” Of course Captain America remembered the pronunciation, even in times of stress. She fell into step beside him, grateful that he slowed his pace.

“Two came in first, posed as hygiene services, the same two that had been doing the job for weeks. They shot the security officer that went down to sign their paperwork, must’ve lifted his prints somehow to open the loading bay doors to the rest. They took control of the system, blocked communication and surveillance. Mr. Stark, they did something to Friday.”

“I know,” he replied tersely. “Go on.”

“Two cleaning staff and the injured security officer are accounted for, I helped them get out to go for help. The security officer is critical, told them to get him an ambulance. With surveillance down I don’t know how many others might be still hiding in the building or escaped. I also don’t know how many Hydra are in here, but there are ten dead that I know of, none of them the original two.”

“Who else is fighting with you?”

“No one.” she could hear the edge of exhaustion in her own voice. “It’s just me, though Frisbee’s been keeping me company. He saved my life sir, shielded me from a grenade,” she added.

As Captain America swelled with pride over his shield-dog, Agent Romanoff turned to her. “You killed ten Hydra operatives yourself?”

Staci felt her cheeks warm. “No ma’am only three. Found the other bodies after the fact. I know Glocky got to at least one, and some of the others had their faces torn open, I think Bowie was responsible.”

“Mama bird is protecting the nest,” Agent Barton muttered.

“Good work Ciesiolka.” Praise from Captain America was weirdly re-energising. “Tony’s going to work on getting Friday up and running again, seeing as how his suit won’t work without her. I want you to go with him and guard his back while he’s working.”

“Yes sir.”

“Go!” The Avengers broke into a run as they spotted the first Hydra operatives. Mr. Stark peeled off from the group, Staci right behind him, and it was with a small pang that she saw that Frisbee had chosen to stay at his master’s heels.

 

*****

 

Hydra Operative #12 shot at the Winter Soldier, very aware of 70 years’ worth of highly trained, super-soldier assassin bearing down on him. He’d heard stories of the Winter Soldier, all the Hydra operatives had, of the efficient unstoppable killing machine, the Ghost, inscrutable behind his mask.

He wished the Winter Soldier had worn his mask today. The expression on his bare face was far more terrifying.

As bullets pinged off the metal arm and the Soldier kept towards him he took a step back. And another.

Something wriggled under his foot and he dragged his eyes away from the Winter Soldier for a split second to see what it was.

A seriously pissed off gun-lizard glared back at him. He went down with a surprised expression and a bullet lodged in his groin.

 

*****

 

“Get out there and hold them off!” the Driver snarled. The remaining operatives ran for the door to the outer lab rooms, leaving the inner lab empty except for the Driver and the Kid. “Come on, come on,” the Driver muttered under his breath, still working on transferring files to the second device.

The Kid, recognising that the mission had gone FUBAR and that the remaining gun in the room happened to be possessed by someone extremely distracted, began edging towards the only escape route.

Wasn’t his fault the Driver lost his damn files.

 

*****

 

Hydra Operative #13 was busy shooting at the witch lady when he caught a glimpse of red, white and blue out of the corner of his eye. He quickly ducked, the shield spinning over his head so closely he could have sworn he felt it graze his helmet. Still in a crouch he turned, wary of the shield ricocheting back at him, and sure enough, he was just able to dodge in time as it came skimming back the other way.

He straightened, just as a second red, white and blue disc on four legs took him out at the knees.

 

*****

 

Gaining the outer rooms of the lab, Falcon and Vision launched into the air, taking advantage of the higher ceilings. Falcon shot down at the Hydra operatives, taking down one, two, before spotting a cluster around Cap, too close to shoot. One had a large knife aimed for Cap’s left kidney, his gun having been knocked away in the fray.

Falcon folded in his wings and dove, turning last minute to crash into the operative feet first. With the operative on the ground he shot him, as Cap finished beating his three to death with his shield and turned. “Thanks Sam.”

He grinned back. “Yeah, I figured four would be pushing your limit.” An explosion sounded, flame engulfed in red light by Scarlett Witch, and Sam launched back towards the ceiling. “Whoa!” He rolled in mid-air to avoid collision with the black bird coming the other way.

 

*****

 

Bowie was impressed. The other bird was an excellent flyer. Strong. Agile. Clearly capable of protecting the nest from the intruders.

The red markings of his plumage stood out rather attractively too.

It was something to consider later once the nest was secure and her current chick was safe. In the meantime she swooped down on another nest-thief that was getting too close to her chick.

 

*****

 

A roar rattled the light fittings, announcing the arrival of the Hulk. There was a moment where nearly everyone paused; the Hulk had that effect on people.

Most people; the Black Widow took advantage of the distraction, slapping tiny devices on each of the three nearest operatives, before pressing a button on her wrist band setting off the electric shocks simultaneously. She watched fondly as a screaming operative sailed across the room, thrown by a big green hand. Movement on the ground caught her eye.

“Oh there you are. Come up here _malen'kiy serdityy_ _,_ before you get stepped on.” She gently scooped up the gun-lizard, clicking her tongue in sympathy when she saw his tail. “Poor thing, you’ve already been stepped on. Here,” she pulled a half-empty magazine from an unconscious operative’s gun, pouring the bullets into her hand. “Have some more ammo.”

Reloaded and happy on his new high perch, Glocky rode his mistress’s shoulder back into the fight.

 

*****

 

The Hulk’s roar broke him. He wasn’t sticking around to face that. The Kid ran for the elevator and mashed at the call button until it arrived. He dashed inside and hit the button for the ground floor, sighing in relief when the doors closed.

 

*****

 

“Uh, Mr. Stark, shouldn’t we be in there?” Staci asked confused. She had assumed that they would need to go into the main lab and take back the console that the Driver had hijacked. Instead Mr. Stark had led her to a side room that seemed be essentially a storage space for assorted junk.

“Well, we could go in there, but there’s about to be a Hulk smashing things up in there, so I’d really prefer to be here.” He rummaged around searching for something. “Plus I kind of need...” he trailed off, mumbling with his head under the bench.

“What? I’ll help you find it,” she persisted when he didn’t finish.

“It’ll be yay big, rectangular, looks kind of like a... oh there it is!” he tossed aside a deadly looking something and Staci winced as it hit the ground. He pulled out what looked like a holographic card with the word FRIDAY messily scrawled on the label. “There’s a universal proverb repeated by IT support all over the world at times like this.”

“What’s that sir?”

He grinned at her. “Have you tried turning it off and then on again?”

 

*****

 

The Hulk smashed his way in through the supposedly shatterproof glass, a Hydra operative dangling from each hand. The Driver snatched up the device and tried to run for the elevator, drawing his gun and shooting wildly behind him.

Captain America’s shield came spinning out of the distance and struck him in the back, sending him sprawling on the ground, the device flying from outstretched fingers.

He rolled over reaching for the device and startled when he met blue starburst eyes set into the weirdest creature he’d ever seen. They held a friendly expression that seemed out of place with all the chaos around.

The creature was standing over the device.

It began to wriggle as it sensed his attention on the object at its feet.

He tentatively stretched out his hand to grab the device all the while expecting his hand to be removed at the wrist. Instead the wriggling increased playfully, and the creature snatched up the device in its jaws.

“No wait! Stop! Drop it!” he grabbed for the gun instead as the creature ran and scrambled under a cabinet. His bullet pinged off its hide as back legs pushed it under the furniture and it turned around to regard him with a gleeful ‘mine now, come and get it’ expression, teeth working at the device. The screen cracked.

“No, you drop it.” Captain America stood over him and stood on his wrist until his hand spasmed and he dropped the gun. “The games up.” A lizard wandered over and peed on the handgun with every evidence of satisfaction.

God this mission had been weird. It was almost just as well he was getting arrested, he was going to be the laughingstock of Hydra if he returned.

 

*****

 

“If you reboot Friday, won’t you lose data?” Staci asked.

“Probably,” Mr. Stark replied, unconcerned. “But we’ll get operational systems back, and I’d rather wipe data than let Hydra have it.” His hands worked over the board. It was all beyond her. “And, here we go.”

“Vocal authorisation code required.” Staci felt like she had an old friend back at the sound of Friday’s voice.

“Thank God it’s Friday,” Mr. Stark replied.

“Authorisation code accepted. Vocal patterns recognised as one Mr. Anthony Stark. Welcome Mr. Stark.”

“Good to have you back Friday. Can you resecure operations systems?”

“Certainly sir.” A brief pause. “Communications are back online. Surveillance is online. Iron Man suits are fully functional. All systems appear to be functioning as normal.”

“Friday, we were infiltrated by Hydra operatives, can you scan for anymore hostiles in the building?”

Another pause. “One is currently secured by Captain Steve Rogers. A second appears to be in the laboratory elevator heading towards the ground floor.”

“Okay, secure that elevator.”

“Yes sir.”

“Sir, that would probably be the one that hacked Friday, I didn’t see him among the casualties.”

“Oh. In that case then – Friday, shake him up a little.”

“With pleasure, sir.”

 

*****

 

The elevator stopped its descent so suddenly that the Kid’s knees buckled, sending him sprawling on the floor. The lights went off, leaving him in darkness.

Oh shit.

He felt gravity press on him as the elevator started to ascend again, much faster than any elevator should, and he watched the floor numbers ping by.

Then his stomach lurched with a feeling of weightlessness, as the elevator plunged into another descent.

 

*****

 

Tony walked into the common area where Avengers, pets, and a certain security officer sprawled over every available surface in post-mission stupor, except for the two super-soldiers who apparently had enough energy still to make breakfast for the entire group. Wanda had collected Puck from her rooms and was sitting cross-legged on a floor cushion with him in her lap, Vision on the sofa at her back. Clint and Sam sat opposite ends of the other sofa, Bowie perched between them, while Natasha draped elegantly across the armchair, stroking a dozing gun-lizard on her shoulder. Bruce had gone blanket burrito in the other armchair; it had taken some time for The Hulk to leave, he had wanted to stay and play with Frisbee by throwing expensive and breakable objects across the lab for him to fetch.

Tony glanced around the gathered crowd before settling his gaze on Staci, where she was sitting on the floor with her back to the wall, her legs stretched out and Frisbee flopped at her side. “Alright, good news,” he told her. “I’ve just heard back from the hospital, it was a close call for a while, but they’ve managed to stabilize Merendino. They said it’s going to take some time to recover, but they’re pretty certain he’ll pull through it.” He shifted a little self-consciously. “I’ll make sure his family’s okay.”

Staci sighed with relief, feeling the weight lift off her chest. “Thanks, sir.” Frisbee rolled over onto his back and stretched with a yawn, pressing a hind paw against her boob. She shifted the paw out of the way and rubbed his belly, now full of food.

Steve had given him steak, Depression-era sensibilities be damned. Frisbee was a hero, and heroes got steak.

Stark nodded at her. “You did good, kid.”

That meant a lot from Tony Stark.

Once SHIELD had arrived for clean-up and dragged off the surviving Hydra operatives, Friday had located the remaining cleaning staff, alive and well. Most were found hiding in various janitor’s closets and utility rooms. One had fortunately stepped outside for a cigarette break just before the building had locked down and, without knowing what was happening inside, assumed he must’ve just forgotten his passcode too many times when he couldn’t get back in.

They’d found him sitting on the step by the door doing the sudoku on a scrap of newspaper, waiting for someone to notice his absence and let him in. He was now on probation and was going to have to resit HR’s emergency protocol training.

The device that Frisbee had been chewing on was unsalvageable. Apparently organic-vibranium based dog slobber could really gum up the works once it got inside an electronic device. Who knew? The stolen data on it was lost, though at least it had been kept out of Hydra hands.

“Uhhh, hi.” Sam’s voice broke through her thoughts and she looked up before realizing he wasn’t talking to her; he was still over sitting on the sofa, and seemed to be talking to Bowie, one eyebrow raised.

The black bird was acting strangely; the all watched perplexed as she snaked her neck gracefully back and forth, fanned her tail feathers and flicked her wing tips in an odd little dance, eyes focused on Sam the whole time. Sam was starting to look freaked and she didn’t blame him; that beak was getting awfully close to his face, and she’d seen first-hand what it could do.

“Clint? What the hell is she doing man?”

Clint shrugged. “Hell if I know. Bowie? Come here mama bird, come to me.” He reached out to her.

She gave his hand an unusually annoyed glance, turning attention back to Sam and letting out a musical trill.

“That’s new,” Clint remarked in surprise.

“First batch of pancakes are nearly cooked,” Bucky announced. He stepped out of the kitchen just as Bowie performed a particularly extravagant tail shake. “Hey Sam, why is Bowie shaking her tail feathers at you? Is that some bird interpretive dance?”

“Shut up asshole.” Sam’s face was burning.

“It definitely looks like a mating dance,” Bruce added from his blanket burrito.

“Looks like Clint’s getting a new step-daddy,” Natasha smirked as Bucky whooped with laughter.

“What?!” Clint squawked, offended. “He’s younger than me!” which just sent everyone into greater peals of laughter, Bucky clutching the bench wheezing while Tony teared up. Staci struggled to stifle her own, feeling bad about making fun of one of the Avengers, but unable to stop as all the pent up stress of the morning released in laughter.

“Oh god, I have to film this, this is brilliant,” Tony choked.

Steve leaned around the entrance of the kitchen, arms folded but obviously amused. He’d clearly heard the conversation. “Breakfast is ready, if you guys are.”

Sam stood up from the sofa and stalked towards the kitchen. “Fine. I’m gonna eat all of the pancakes. Y’all assholes except for Steve.” The exit would have been a lot more dignified if Bowie hadn’t have followed him, wings spread and head still bobbing as she waddled along awkwardly behind him.

 

*****

 

Tony pushed his way into the damaged lab, his mind already on upgrading Friday’s security measures as he stepped over the shattered glass. Dum-E turned as he approached, broom held in his claw. He whirred a little noise.

“Yeah, yeah, no need to get all mushy it,” Tony told him. He would never admit to anyone the sick feeling he’d gotten upon finding Dum-E stuffed unceremoniously in a cupboard with his power source removed, but he found himself slapping at the robot’s casing as he walked past. See, totally manly, no feelings to see here, folks. “Just get this all cleaned up so we can start on repairs. Maybe make some improvements to the lab while we’re at it, what do you think?”

Dum-E whistled what might have been agreement, might have been a ‘fuck you sir’, it was hard to tell.

Tony walked towards his suit standing alone on the platform. Did a double-take when a familiar table caught his eye.

On the table lay a second device.

He picked it up and inspected it. It was whole and undamaged, definitely not the same one chewed by a certain shield-dog. The screen was already lit up, showing...

File transfer complete. He scrolled through, seeing all the data, all the intel, everything.

He looked down at the table. Glanced around the destroyed lab in case anyone was watching.

He patted the smooth surface. “Good Table.”

 

*****

 


End file.
